I’m starting to introduce my daughter to chores. For the most part she’s enjoying helping mommy out and doesn’t think of it as a chore. Although, she has started showing some resistance to activities that she is supposed to do every day such as making her bed and picking up her toys at the end of the day. I’ve been trying different ways to motivate her and I thought I had tried everything when I came across an ice cream chore chart from Childmade. In her version she used fabric and an embroidery machine. I don’t have an embroidery machine so I decided to make an ice cream chore chart using paper. What worked out great with this is that my daughter was even able to color and decorate her own ice cream scoops and cone!
Materials:
Construction Paper (you can do colored paper or white)
Glue
Glitter
Sequins
Scissors
Markers, crayons, or paint
Laminate
Magnet
Dry Erase Marker
Directions:
First you will need to determine how many chores your child does or should do each day. For each chore you will need one scoop of ice cream.
Draw one scoop of ice cream on construction paper and cut it out. Use this scoop to trace out each additional scoop so they are all the same.
You can make each scoop a different color of construction paper or use white construction paper and let your child color or paint each scoop however they want. If you let your child color the scoops, let them do this before you cut it out so that if they get outside the lines it won’t matter.
Use brown construction paper for the cone. The cone will be a simple cone shape or triangle. You can use markers or paint to draw lines on the cone to create the waffle effect on the cone.
Let your child decorate each scoop of ice cream by gluing on glitter and sequins.
Laminate the cone and each scoop of ice cream once the glue has dried.
Glue a magnet onto the back of each scoop of ice cream and the cone.
Place the ice cream and cone on the fridge.
Each time your child does their chore; add a scoop of ice cream to their ice cream cone. When they have reached their goal, reward them with …. Ice Cream!! Or another treat that you both agree on.
You can use a dry erase marker to write the chore for each scoop on the scoop, that way your child can see what they need to do and what they have done that got them a scoop of ice cream on their cone. To wipe the scoop clean use a damp cloth or Windex and a paper towel. This way you can change which chores they need to get done without making more scoops and if they do something especially nice that was not on their chore list you can write it on a scoop and add it on the cone as a bonus.
