What Works For Us, Part 3
The first step in making a whole house, whole family, workable chore chart was to list all the chores that need to be done in the entire house in a week. Phew! I don't know about your house, but in mine, that's a lot of chores! It was helpful for me to look at other people's cleaning lists and remind myself of the things that could get done if I were more organized. You can go here for a pretty comprehensive listing of household chores. ( I was going to show you my list, but it is on my other computer that is at the computer Dr. right now)
After listing all of the jobs that need to be done in a week, I took a piece of paper and divided it into 5 sections, one for each day of the week. Then I put all the jobs from my list into the days of the week that would work best with our schedule and when it was important to me that it be accomplished. For example, we always clean the bathrooms on Friday because the weekend is the most likely time that we will have guests in our home and I want them to be freshly cleaned. We do the least amount of chores on Mondays as that is the day that things get back to normal after our days off (Saturday and Sunday), and that little ones recuperate from a long day of activity at church.
Some of the jobs that I thought of were not necessarily jobs that needed to be done on a weekly basis. Those jobs are put on a separate "Extra Chore List" that we use on Saturdays and other times through the week to cure boredom and mischievousness . Not really, I just said that for fun. Those extra jobs actually get done on the odd 5th week of the month. As we all know, some months have 5 weeks instead of 4, which makes the perfect rotation for jobs like dusting the fan blades and wiping down the baseboards. Ideally, I should keep my reminders for things like this on a calendar or something, but so far that hasn't happened yet. Actually, I'll probably just schedule myself a "Sticky" for them, since that is one of my new favorite ways to remember things.
Once this is done, I end up feeling pretty happy about what I've accomplished. It seems like success is within reach! Alas, its really just at the "pretty good" stage, so I've got to keep going.
Next, comes the point when I use one of my favorite resources, which at the moment is on loan to someone of which I cannot remember---I hate that. I will post the list or at least a portion of it after I contact its author. Until then, I'll just tell you about it. This great and favored resource is a listing of all manner of household chores broken down by age groups. This was such a tremendous help to me! Of course, I could sit down and think about it as I analyze my children and their capabilities, but with this list I didn't have to do that! Not only did it help me divide up the different chores, but it reminded me of some jobs that really aren't' too hard for a three year old to do, but may require some additional training to get it done just right. So, now that I've told you about a great list that you can't have, I'll tell you....sorry. Maybe I'll come up with my own, since I now feel guilty for leading you on like this.
For the next step, I go through the list of chores and place the child's initials next to the job that I'm going to put on their individual list. (e.g. Straighten the Playroom Bookshelf -- S ) For some of the chores I keep in mind their strengths. For example, Sophia is a really good duster) and for others I am mindful of their weaknesses and that I want to build them up in a particular area. For this reason, Caleb gets to clean the toilet and the floor around it in the children's bathroom. Boys are gross in using bathrooms. I know its not just mine because I know plenty of people with boys who have the same bathroom "issues" that I do!
After I've gone through my list and assigned all of the tasks, I plug them into my nifty chore chart that I've made on my computer. I looked and looked for just the right chart, as there are 100's available to buy or print from the Internet, but I'm too picky. You'll see here what I've come up with for the older children and then one for the younger. At first, I had the same chart for all the children, but it is much easier to have one that uses pictures and words for the younger ones. Now Titus can look at his chart and know what to do by recognizing the pictures that we've talked about. That's not to say that he just does it all by himself, but it's a step towards helping him.
Finally, I celebrate and take a deep breath!! Mission accomplished! Now comes the fun/hard part, enforcing! It takes us a while to get into the routine, but slowly and surely we do and it makes life sooo much easier.
I hope that all of this hasn't bored you too much, but will be a help and a blessing to you and your family (sorry, kids), as it has been to ours.
After listing all of the jobs that need to be done in a week, I took a piece of paper and divided it into 5 sections, one for each day of the week. Then I put all the jobs from my list into the days of the week that would work best with our schedule and when it was important to me that it be accomplished. For example, we always clean the bathrooms on Friday because the weekend is the most likely time that we will have guests in our home and I want them to be freshly cleaned. We do the least amount of chores on Mondays as that is the day that things get back to normal after our days off (Saturday and Sunday), and that little ones recuperate from a long day of activity at church.
Some of the jobs that I thought of were not necessarily jobs that needed to be done on a weekly basis. Those jobs are put on a separate "Extra Chore List" that we use on Saturdays and other times through the week to cure boredom and mischievousness . Not really, I just said that for fun. Those extra jobs actually get done on the odd 5th week of the month. As we all know, some months have 5 weeks instead of 4, which makes the perfect rotation for jobs like dusting the fan blades and wiping down the baseboards. Ideally, I should keep my reminders for things like this on a calendar or something, but so far that hasn't happened yet. Actually, I'll probably just schedule myself a "Sticky" for them, since that is one of my new favorite ways to remember things.
Once this is done, I end up feeling pretty happy about what I've accomplished. It seems like success is within reach! Alas, its really just at the "pretty good" stage, so I've got to keep going.
Next, comes the point when I use one of my favorite resources, which at the moment is on loan to someone of which I cannot remember---I hate that. I will post the list or at least a portion of it after I contact its author. Until then, I'll just tell you about it. This great and favored resource is a listing of all manner of household chores broken down by age groups. This was such a tremendous help to me! Of course, I could sit down and think about it as I analyze my children and their capabilities, but with this list I didn't have to do that! Not only did it help me divide up the different chores, but it reminded me of some jobs that really aren't' too hard for a three year old to do, but may require some additional training to get it done just right. So, now that I've told you about a great list that you can't have, I'll tell you....sorry. Maybe I'll come up with my own, since I now feel guilty for leading you on like this.
For the next step, I go through the list of chores and place the child's initials next to the job that I'm going to put on their individual list. (e.g. Straighten the Playroom Bookshelf -- S ) For some of the chores I keep in mind their strengths. For example, Sophia is a really good duster) and for others I am mindful of their weaknesses and that I want to build them up in a particular area. For this reason, Caleb gets to clean the toilet and the floor around it in the children's bathroom. Boys are gross in using bathrooms. I know its not just mine because I know plenty of people with boys who have the same bathroom "issues" that I do!
After I've gone through my list and assigned all of the tasks, I plug them into my nifty chore chart that I've made on my computer. I looked and looked for just the right chart, as there are 100's available to buy or print from the Internet, but I'm too picky. You'll see here what I've come up with for the older children and then one for the younger. At first, I had the same chart for all the children, but it is much easier to have one that uses pictures and words for the younger ones. Now Titus can look at his chart and know what to do by recognizing the pictures that we've talked about. That's not to say that he just does it all by himself, but it's a step towards helping him.
Finally, I celebrate and take a deep breath!! Mission accomplished! Now comes the fun/hard part, enforcing! It takes us a while to get into the routine, but slowly and surely we do and it makes life sooo much easier.
I hope that all of this hasn't bored you too much, but will be a help and a blessing to you and your family (sorry, kids), as it has been to ours.
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