How to Organize Household Cleaning with Kids

Do you have a particular day that you do an overall cleaning of the house?  Friday is my day.  Mom did it that way and I just followed in her footsteps.  Sometimes after having a crowd on the weekend it really should be done again on Monday but unless it’s really bad I don’t do an overall cleaning.  I just wait for Friday.  With kids you could vacuum everyday and with all the dust you have in Arizona, I could dust every few hours but I guess I would rather do other things.  You with me? 

As you know, I’m a believer in having your children help around the house like I mentioned my kids do here.  I believe it gives them an appreciation for the work done by mom, teaches them responsibility and very useful life skills. 

Several years ago I instituted this weekly blessing chart.  What’s a weekly blessing you may ask?  It’s a phrase coined byMarla at Flylady and it simply means the time spent cleaning your home.

For my weekly blessing chart, I thought of all the jobs that should be done on a weekly basis to give the house a nice overall cleaning.

Here is the chart. 

How I use it:

I keep it in a page protector so that I can re-use it each week.  Use a dry erase marker for writing.

1. First, I cross out any jobs the kids do not need to do.  I always cross out the vacuuming of the house since I do that but if I’m unavailable for some reason it’s there on the chart for the kids.

2. If there are jobs that a specific child needs to do, I write their name on the spot.

3. Next, I randomly number the chores using a dry erase marker.

Like this… 

4.  I see how many numbers I have written.  In this case it’s 11.  Dividing that up by 4 (since I have 4 children old enough to do these big chores), I see that each child will have 3 chores and one will only have 2.  

5.  Then going in a circle I ask each child to pick a number (without seeing the chart) until they’re all used up.

6.  When the chores are all chosen THEN they get to see what jobs they have picked.

This has been a tremendous help to me since it can be very difficult to find a large chunk of time to clean the house when you’re homeschooling and doing various other duties.

How can you make one?

The first one I ever made was just circles I drew on a paper and then hand wrote the jobs I needed done inside the circle.  After I realized how well it worked, I used Printmaster to make the next one.  The great thing about it is you can fill the circles with jobs that work for your family.  A customized chart for pennies.  How great is that?!

More Thoughts on the Subject

Now that my oldest is 20 and busy with work and such, it is usually just me and the 3 oldest ones who do the majority of the jobs but if he is around and available, we add him into the mix.  Aren’t we just the sweetest? 🙂  We don’t want anybody feeling left out around here.

I try to have the jobs completed by early afternoon.  It just works better than dragging it on into the evening hours. 

When the children were a few years younger, there seemed to be more of a camaraderie when they worked on their jobs all at the same time.

When your children are older they are able to surprise you by completely taking charge of what needs to be done and assigning duties if you happen to be gone on a get-away with your husband like I was one time.  You know how you leave the house sometimes and come home to a bomb? Well, this time it was different.  Let me tell you, it was a very nice change. 🙂 

If you have fewer children than myself, you may want to put a limit on how many jobs they do.  It can seem overwhelming if there’s a lot.

I keep my weekly blessing chart in a binder titled My Personal Home Organizer. 

May this be a blessing to you,

I’m joining WFMW. (Works for Me Wednesday)