Uh Oh Box Chore List

Remember this little gem?

Boy I do! Talk about a Pinterest explosion. I had no idea that my little poem and sign for a Toy Ransom Box was going to be such a hit.

Thanks to all of you who facebooked and pinned this little project. I owe a whole heck of a lot of blog traffic to you.

Thanks for all the sweet words. They make my day every time I read them.

Thanks to all of those who picked up the Mama Bear reference, it is good to know there is a whole group of us paying homage to good ole' Mama Berenstain Bear.

AGAIN, thank you to all of you.

Now to your questions:


I had several of you ask about my chore list. In the original post I had both this Toy Ransom Box and I had chore charts and punch cards for my Little Men.

I wasn't sure which chore list you all were requesting, but I took a stab in the dark and guessed that you wanted the list of chores for the ransom bucket.

So I am giving you the option to download a pdf of the list of chores I use.

download HERE

You will notice I have incorporated regular chores, service opportunities, and physical activities. Hopefully this will give you a jumping off point if you were wondering what kind of chores to do.

Another question I got-

How do we go about enforcing cleaning out the box? Especially when there is apathy about getting the toys out of the box.

First, if there is a really special toy in the box, but the box has been full of other things for several days, then they have to clear out the other toys first.

Also, sometimes there is a general attitude of "Ah, who cares about those toys. We have more." Since it is most likely inevitable that this will happen, we also made the rule that the box has to be cleared out on a specific day each week. That way the toys don't just sit in there.

For us this is Fridays. Nothing fun happens until the box is cleared out. Everyone helps, regardless of who's toys are in there.

So I think that about covers everything.

We still are getting a lof use out of this system.

My boys are a lot more aware of when they leave stuff out. We seldom have to remind them more than once to gather up their toys. We simply have to say "Ransom Box" and they pick up their stuff.
Even amidst whining, it still gets cleaned up.

Haha...I said they cleaned, never said the complaining went away.

Thanks again everyone for all the love you have given this idea.
Thanks for spreading the word.
Thanks for sticking around and supporting my little blog.

I sure loves ya for it!