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Challenge Charts: Creative Ways to Inspire Kids of All Ages (30 Free)

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Challenge charts are super cool ways to inspire and motivate kids of all ages.

With these free printable charts, you can track progress, achievements, and more.

Get creative ideas for enjoying these 30 free challenge charts and find out how to get your set today!

Easily Help Your Kids Work Towards & Achieve Goals

Need a simple yet fun way to motivate your kids as they work towards a goal or accomplishment?

Challenge charts are incredible ways to inspire and track progress. These visual tools make it easy for kids to record a variety of behaviors, choices, or steps towards reaching an end goal.

So, what is a challenge chart? Well, it's usually a printable page or poster that contains a specific number of blocks or items to mark off as your student works toward an agreed upon goal.

Over the years, my boys and I have used challenge charts in all sorts of fun ways in our homeschool. We've tracked our homeschool attendance (our 100 Days of Homeschool Fun chart has always been a big hit!), reading, chores, homeschool physical education, and more.

And there are SO many cool ways to use these blank challenge charts. (In fact, I've printed out extra copies for me to use, too!). A few ideas include to track:

  • Summer reading
  • Reading minutes, books, etc.
  • Math drills
  • Writing time (using prompts or just free write)
  • Handwriting practice (cursive or print)
  • Quiet time
  • Music lessons or practice
  • Dancing practice
  • Hydration
  • Healthy eating
  • Physical activity, including:
    • Walking
    • Running
    • Jumping jacks
    • Planks
    • Push-ups
    • Sit-ups (or other core work)
    • Swimming
    • Yoga
    • Jumping rope
  • Board games
  • Chores
  • Saving money
  • Brushing teeth
  • Bedtime routine
  • Fine motor skills practice
  • Typing
  • Spelling
  • Vocabulary
  • Anything that you'd like your child to develop a positive habit of!
challenge chart with circles on red clipboard with color pencils, dot markers, crayon, marker, pencil, and pencil sharpener.

Learn More About This Free Set of Challenge Charts

This free printable pack includes 30 styles of challenge charts.

On each chart, you'll find "100 CHALLENGE" in open font (able to be colored in), Goal, Name, Start Date, and Completed. Each chart has 100 items with these styles:

  • Stars
  • Hearts
  • Rounded squares
  • Circles
  • Triangles
  • Plus signs
  • Checkmarks in boxes
  • Smiley faces
  • Apples
  • Waterdrops
  • Musical notes
  • Books
  • Pencils
  • Flowers
  • Leaves
  • Suns
  • Moons
  • Quotation bubbles
  • Gifts
  • Puzzle pieces
  • Recycling arrows
  • Rubber ducks
  • Cars
  • Unicorns
  • Dinosaurs
  • Piggy banks
  • Dollar signs
  • Clocks
  • Footsteps
  • Running figures

I recommend printing these free challenge charts on white cardstock to improve durability. Or go for a fun color!

challenge charts mock-up and example of free printable challenge chart on red clipboard with variety of coloring tools.

Creative Ideas for Using These Visual Tools

Make sure you have a variety of coloring utensils and materials for your kids to use, like:

  • Crayons
  • Color pencils
  • Stickers
  • Stamps
  • Bingo daubers (dot markers)
  • Hole punch
  • Pencil (or erasable pen) to complete the top portion of Name, Goal, Start Date, and Completed.

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Encourage your children to get creative with their challenge charts. They can use fun stuff like washi tape or glitter glue to decorate the borders. Or glue onto colorful or patterned cardstock to reinforce.

Celebrate small and big wins. Working towards a goal can be tough! Acknowledge the hard work and effort going into this challenge. Some simple ideas to help you celebrate include dance party, enjoying a yummy treat, going for a walk, and playing a board game.

You may be wondering what to do when your child completes their challenge chart. Do you give a reward? If so, what kind?

Well, that's totally up to you! Some kids find it super motivational to have a reward to look forward to at the end of accomplishing a goal. A reward can be something small like a sheet of stickers, a new book, or box of crayons. Or it can be bigger like going out for ice cream, a movie, or getting a new toy.

The decision to reward is up to you and what you feel comfortable doing. Rewards can be experiential - like spending extra time together on a craft, watching a movie, or baking a tasty treat. Or rewards can be things - like gift cards, toys, or money.

Example of free printable challenge chart featuring unicorns on floral clipboard with unicorn erasers, unicorn stamp, color pencils, and dot markers.

Tips & Tricks for Enjoying Challenge Charts with Kids of All Ages

It's important to chat about expectations for the challenge.

Get specific about what need to happen in order for a step to be completed. For example, if your child would like to read 100 books, determine the length of book that counts (Does a baby board book count? Or do the books need to be at least 50 pages?)

Or maybe your student wants to walk 100 miles. Will you take your child to a local track or do you have a treadmill? Maybe you could go on a nature walk and log miles there?

Another option is to break down the challenge charts into minutes. If you'd like your child to practice music for 100 minutes, you could use one musical note 🎵 as a minute.

OR you can use each musical note for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, etc. It's really up to you to customize 😊

Place your challenge charts in highly visible areas, like wall, refrigerator, bedroom door, or homeschool space.

Keep challenge chart tools close to where you place them. Store in a pencil box, a basket, a small box, or cart.

Talk with your kids about growth mindset and its skills of resilience, the power of yet, overcoming obstacles, positivity, solution-oriented thinking, creativity, thinking outside the box, intrinsic motivation, and more.

Brainstorm ideas for dealing with obstacles or wanting to give up. Make a list of these ideas and keep it near your challenge charts to refer to, if needed.

Provide your children with positive and constructive feedback. Praise effort!

If a "100 Challenge" seems too much, no worries! Break down your challenge into smaller chunks. Cut it in half or quarter it. This challenge is all about your student and helping them grow!

mock-up of challenge charts featuring checkmarks, stars, apples, water drops, and pencils.

Get Your Free Set of Printable Challenge Charts

High five! These challenge charts are fantastic ways to motivate kids of all ages 🎉

This free printable pack of challenge charts includes 30 pages.

You may print as many copies of these challenge charts as you need for your homeschool, classroom, or co-op. If you have co-workers or friends who'd enjoy these free printable charts, please share this postThank you for sharing - I greatly appreciate your cooperation!

To get these FREE printable challenge charts, all you need to do is subscribe to Rock Your Homeschool.

You’ll get an email with a PDF file, along with a password to open the Subscriber’s Library to all RYHS freebies.

AND you’ll receive emails with ideas, resources, and encouragement to make life and learning fun 🙂

(Hey hey! Current RYHS members can access the Subscriber Freebies page and enter the password in your welcome email. Please contact Amy at rockyourhomeschool@gmail.com with any questions or problems!)

Get your Free Challenge Charts Pack by tapping here or on the image below.

Examples of free printable challenge charts.

I would love to know your ideas about how to use these challenge charts with kids! Please share in the comments area at the bottom of this post 😍

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3 Comments

  1. This is a great post! I love the idea of using challenge charts to motivate kids. They always seem to respond well to challenges.

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