Chore Chart for a 9 Year Old: Free Printable and Ideas

Nine is when a child starts doing things without you standing there. A 9-year-old can run a job from start to finish in another room, which is exactly why this chart looks different from the one they had at six. Below you will find a printable with eight real jobs, what each one looks like when it is done, and a sample week so you can see how many minutes it adds up to.

The printable chart

The printable has eight jobs with a box for each day from Monday to Sunday and points beside each. Not all eight happen every day. Mark three or four as daily and treat the others as "Tuesday and Friday" or "Saturday" jobs. Print it, add a pen on a string, and hang it where your child gets dressed or eats breakfast.

At this age the chart can have only words, no pictures. Some nine-year-olds like that, because it looks less like a little kid's chart. Others still like a small drawing, and that is fine too.

What a 9-year-old can really do

A nine-year-old can plan a short job, keep going when it is dull and judge when it is done, at least roughly. They are strong enough to carry a full trash bag and coordinated enough to load a dishwasher without breaking much. Expect 20 to 30 minutes of chores a day in total, across everything.

The right column matters more than the points. A nine-year-old who can read "floor clear, clothes in the hamper, books on the shelf" can check their own work. Vague jobs like "clean your room" turn into arguments about whose standard counts.

A sample week

Say your 9-year-old does four daily jobs: bed (5), school bag (5), dishes (5) and room (10), which is 25 points on a school day. Add the dishwasher on Monday and Thursday (10 each), laundry on Wednesday (10), and trash and vacuuming on Saturday (30).

Over a week that comes to roughly 235 points: 25 points on each of seven days (175), 30 for the extra weekday jobs and 30 for Saturday's trash and vacuuming. With a small reward at 30 to 50 points, a medium one at 100 and a big one at 300 to 500, your child can afford something small by Tuesday, a movie pick by Friday, and a bigger goal in two to three weeks. If a week runs low, nothing is lost: "You're 20 points from the movie pick, nice work."

Keep the weekly jobs few, because every one is another box to track. When this chart feels easy, look at the chore chart for a 10 year old, where the jobs get bigger.

Teaching a job so you can stop reminding

Most "he never does it" complaints trace back to a job that was never taught. For any new chore, do it once while your child watches, do it together, then let them do it while you stay nearby, then check it against the "done" description. The dishwasher takes about three rounds. The pet jobs are a good place to start if your child is nervous about bigger ones; our guide to pet care chores for kids covers what is safe at each age, and laundry chores by age shows how folding grows into running the machine.

When your child forgets, say one sentence and stop. "The dishwasher is waiting." Our page on getting kids to do chores without yelling has more phrases like that.

Running the chart in Famiyo

Famiyo is a free family app for iPhone and Android that combines a shared family calendar, chores with points and a rewards shop; kids join with a code, no email needed. Instead of a printed chart, you add each job once and set it to repeat: daily for the bed, Tuesday and Friday for the dishwasher, weekly for the vacuum. Your child gets a notification for new tasks, ticks them off on their own phone, and sees their points go up. You can choose to approve each job yourself first, or let them check off on their own.

If you are comparing tools, see our list of the best chore chart apps.

Choose three daily jobs from the table, print the chart, and walk through "done" for each one with your child this weekend.