Chore Pad

Chores. The most hated word in my house. And that goes for both the children and me. I’m motivated to clean because the filth does eventually get to me. My children are motivated by their mother. All it takes now is withholding Saturday play dates until the chores are done but in the past we’ve been firm believers in chore carts and rewards. It’s not been uncommon to find our walls and mirrors covered with a variety of charts of one kind or another. It’s nice to see an iPhone/iPad alternative.

Chore Pad lets you create chore charts for an unlimited number of children and an unlimited number of chores. Each chore can be assigned a certain value, or number of points it is worth. The days the chores repeat on may be set, as well as how often it repeats. For example, I have clean the bathroom set to occur on Saturday and repeat weekly but make your bed is set to occur everyday. The bathroom chore is worth more points than the bed making even tthough the bed making is often the harder chore to get done. You can enter as many chores as you like into your “Chore Chest”. Then, once you’ve added in users you can assign them different chores from the chest. As you add in chores you’ll be creating the chore chart. The order of the chores on the chart can easily be rearranged so you can arrange them as you like. Personally, I like daily chores at the top and weekly chores at the bottom. If you flip the iPhone so you are holding it in landscape mode you will be able to see a chore chart that spans the entire week. Holding the phone upright you will see the chart for the current day.

When a child completes a chore you will tap on it’s box and a checkmark appears. The number of points the chore was worth will be added to the child’s tally. Chore Pad gives you the ability to create a list of rewards. Rewards can be named and given a value. When your child has collected enough points they may have a “payout” where they exchange points for the reward. When they do this the number of points they spent will be deducted from their point total.

The concept behind Chore Pad is good and it’s nice to have a chore cart that can be reused and reset, as many times as needed. Being able to customize the users and chores is great for those who have schedules that may change. My children’s summer chores are very different from what I ask them to do during the school year. I just have two suggestions for the app. My only suggestion for the app is that when adding chores to the chore chest it would be helpful to have a master list to choose from. I’d like to keep the ability to add in my own chores but being able to choose from a preset list would save time.

Chore Pad HDis the Chore Pad designed for the iPad. It costs $4.99 while the iPhone version costs $2.99. I have not tested out the iPad version.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

See the app in iTunes

Seller: Nannek

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.