Dinner Jobs

Quite awhile back I read this post about dinner jobs. I thought it was a great idea. I loved how she planned the jobs that one person's job didn't rely on another persons...always a problem. I've been wanting to start jobs at dinner, currently we're hit and miss but the person who gets up from the table first without being excused is who has to clear the dishes. Not the best way...though it does keep everyone at the table until dinner's over and it teaches manners.

But I wanted a more routine way of dinner jobs. At our old house I had an S and a C cut out of construction paper that I rotated between the kids for setting and clearing the table. But the ones on the post were cuter and more detailed. I made up what would have been 4x4 cards but I never got them printed.

I put "dinner jobs" on the kids' checklists for each day. Each day they ask me what their dinner job is...I'm not ready for that part yet I'd say. And so everyone shoveled food into their mouths and walked away from the table. Actually everyone took their plate to the sink but I was still the one doing the dishes, putting everything away and taking care of the table and floor.

Today I sat in the easy chair for my couple of minutes of quiet time, the few minutes while everyone is supposed to sit on their beds looking at books, or if you're under 4 lay down and take a nap. I looked at the table and thought about the dinner jobs again. How we needed to get that started. How I wanted it to look.

My old computer files made in my beloved Microsoft Publisher are not compatible with the new computer (a mac) so I sat down to recreate them. And now that I have Internet I thought fondly back to my limited experience with picnik. So I shot a few staged shots. Uploaded. And created some really fun (I think) dinner jobs lists.