Five-Minute-Job Jarby Myra Turner | More from this Blogger 05 Mar 2007 09:22 AM Sometimes getting your kids to do chores around the house can be as hard as pulling teeth with a tiny set of tweezers. If you are looking for a way to make chores fun, try using a job jar. I saw this idea in the November 2006 issue of Woman's Day. It's called the Five-Minute-Job Jar. It's a way to get your kids to help with small chores around the house and clear up your time so that you can get a break. What you do is get some small, unlined index cards or cut out squares of card stock. Next, decide which chores you want to include and write each one on a card. You can use pictures for younger kids. Examples of chores include scrubbing the kitchen sink, sweeping the kitchen or bathroom floor, tidying up the den and folding laundry. The idea is to select jobs that can be done quickly but ones that you normally do but can be done by your kids. Once that's done, have the cards laminated because you will be using the cards repeatedly. I have used clear shelf paper as a substitute for lamination in many projects and it's worked just as well. So you may want to consider substituting if you don't want to laminate. I think it would be a good idea to also create job jars specific to tasks that each of your kids should be responsible for. For instance, cleaning their room. Instead of tackling the entire room and taking hours to do so (along with lots of moaning and groaning) have them work on specific jobs like cleaning their closet, straightening their desks, cleaning out their toy box, etc. One thing I do for Tyler, which I shouldn't, is clean out his backpack. He always has paper, bits of pencils, erasers and a bunch of other junk jammed inside but he never cleans it out. This would be an easy five-minute job for him. Chores don't have to be drudgery if we break them down into bite-sized pieces. See also: Learn more about Myra Turner  I'm a proud mid-life single mom with an active seven-year-old son, Tyler. Relevantparenting tags User Comments  Julie Gentry (5915) 05 Mar 2007 12:30 PMInteresting. Do you pay them for the jobs, or are these part of regular chores?  Valorie Delp (49340) 05 Mar 2007 02:08 PMWe do something very similar. . .except it revolves around a specific peice of equipment. (What can I say? My kids love the dustbuster.) So the job may involve the dust pan and the kitchen or something similar. I find I don't have to make it quite so corny for my older kids but for my little kids they find it way fun and eveyrone gets in on the act.  Myra Turner (1560) 05 Mar 2007 09:56 PMNo pay. These are jobs that can be done quickly. Most of which mom is probably already doing. It's a way to get kids more involved in helping out. Of course you can modify to fit your needs. If you pay for chores then you can write on the card the amount of pay for each job and have your kids present the card to you when they complete the task. Community Tags chores, chores for kids, getting kids to help around the Discuss this article
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