Cookie Sheet Chore Chart

With summer coming - and fall just around the corner - my husband and I have decided it's time to begin giving our four-year-old chores to teach him responsibility before he starts school in the fall. Our son is a visual learner, though, so we wanted to have an interactive chart that would be easy for all three of us to see what he's done and what's still left to do.

I struggled with how to make the chart interactive, however, without having to replace it every week. I decided to make it magnetic, but putting it on the fridge seemed like a disaster waiting to happen in our house.  I was having visions of having to fish the magnets out from underneath the fridge every other day.

Finally, I decided to adapt an idea I'd seen other scrappers use to make advent calendars, and use a cookie sheet as a base.

Materials:

• cookie sheet
• two 8 ½" x 10" sheets of cardstock in the same color
• cardstock scraps in coordinating colors.
• 1/8" ribbon
• archival-safe pen
• lettering (either stickers or cut letters - I used my Cuttlebug to cut Sizzix Sizzlits)
• 23 cut shapes (20 of one size, 2 slightly larger and one large--I used my QuicKutz nesting stars)
• adhesive
• magnets (22)
• scissors
• paper trimmer
• pencil
• ruler

Directions:

Get a standard-size cookie sheet and flip it over. This will represent the base of your chore chart. Look for one with holes in the handle; this will make it easier to hang your finished product.

Place your two 8" x 10 sheets of cardstock against the bottom of the cookie sheet, overlapping them to create the base of your chart. It should cover the entire bottom of the cookie sheet, leaving the handles open. Use your adhesive (I prefer Scotch ATG) to secure them together. Put your cookie sheet aside for now.

Cut a piece of your coordinating cardstock to measure 8 ½" x 5". Using your ruler, draw a grid pattern with four blocks down and six across. Cut six pieces of ribbon six inches long and four pieces nine inches long. Run a Zig Glue Pen along the grid lines and adhere the ribbon to form a permanent grid. Adhere the chart to the base cardstock, ensuring that you've left at least an inch of space from the edges. In the first spaces on the left side of the grid, use your pen to write in the daily chores you'd like your child to do. Then, using your alphas, place one (‘M', ‘T', "W', ‘T', ‘F') for each of the five days of the week on the base cardstock above your grid.

Next, create two pockets in coordinating colors with some of your scrap cardstock, each measuring 3" x 2".  (To make a pocket, you just adhere three sides of the cardstock to the base paper and leave the top open.) Use your alphas to indicate that the pockets represent Saturday and Sunday. This will allow you to create tags using more scrap cardstock on which you can write chores that require parental supervision or are weekly in nature. By using a pocket, you can change which chore your child does each week or have him or her do more than one special chore. Cut cardstock to form as many tags as you think you'll need and use your pen to explain the chores in detail on the tags. I punched mine out with my Cuttlebug and added a ribbon to make them easy to handle.

Now create a third pocket, measuring 2 ½" x 5", which will hold your extra tags while not in use. Adhere it to your base.

I wanted to include another pocket that could hold tags with rewards on them so my son would understand what he'd get in exchange for doing all of his chores. I used the largest star shape in my  QuicKutz Nesting Stars and created a fourth pocket by adhering the sides of the star to the base cardstock, leaving the very top open to hold a few more additional tags explaining his rewards.

Finally, it's time to create the marker that will indicate whether a chore has been done or not. I used my QuicKutz Nesting Stars and cut the second-smallest size star 20 times for use on the grid and a slightly larger star twice for use on the weekend pockets. Adhere each star to a piece of magnet (make sure your magnet is strong enough to hold through two pieces of cardstock). Magnets can be stored in the free space on your base cardstock while not in use.

Lastly, adhere your base cardstock to the cookie sheet.

Some money-saving tips: if you have a cookie sheet on its last legs, you can consider using it for your chore chart instead of buying a new one. You can also use magnets you have around the house instead of purchasing new ones; I found that the magnets given out by many businesses were perfect for my needs and simply cut them to fit each of my stars.