… on my 12 week challenge. The good thing about this heatwave, (maybe the only good thing about this heatwave) is having a great excuse to stay inside and do some creative organizing projects, don’t you think?
Are you making progress, too? I know some of you are (yeah!) thanks to your emails and blog comments. Thanks for updating me! It’s exciting to see what you’re all accomplishing in just twelve short weeks. Exciting stuff, isn’t it?
Juel asked if I’ll be doing an organizing challenge before the holidays. Thanks for the great idea Juel. What do you think … should I do it? Let me know what you think … would you join in?
Alright … so here’s where I am on the chore system for my kids:
1) Both children now have a clipboard to use to keep track of their daily chores. That was yesterday’s project — lots of fun.
2) We’ve decided on their weekly responsibilities — for before school, after school and bedtime — and have a daily checklist to use.
3) There’s enthusiasm in the air for this new chore system. The kids are actually excited about it! Yippee! Now my job is to keep the enthusiasm going.
We have three weeks until school starts … just enough time to get into the habit of doing these chores every day. So that’s good.
What’s left to do? Well … I have to decide a strategy for weekend chores. This is when we do the serious house cleaning and laundry and I’d love some help from the kids on that. Who wouldn’t, right? But I also want this to be less structured than the weekdays … for all of us. So I have to figure out a system for the weekend chores, as well as how to make these chore lists “readable” for my daughter who can’t read quite yet. I have some ideas percolating …
More soon! Have a happy Monday!
Hope I can offer my two cents on house chores.
My family use to be apart of the weekend chore crowd, until I started getting complaints from husband/children that we never did anything on the weekend but clean. My solution was to stretch my weekend cleaning over three days: Thursday, Friday and Monday. Thursday and Fridays are wash/dry/fold days. After school each day they take 15-30mins to do whatever chore is on the list. There lists are spread out a little more than mine just because of school. Days of heavy homework are cut down to 15mins…..it is surprizing how much a child can get done in that amount of time!!! Mornings are kept simple with getting ready for school. This helps to just set everything out the night before bedtime. If things are needed to be cold for lunches, this is the time it goes in the frigerator.
These things might seem pretty simple but they free up the weekend to just play and even do a few outside chores if needed.
I think having a holiday challenge would be great.
Please, please do this!
I’m going to steal the clipboard idea – LOVE that… grace would just adore having her own clipboard. I’ll also share my idea. Grace is a pre-reader so in order to tackle two birds with one stone (and to let me add some creativity to the project) I am taking photos of the chores or activities that she needs to do.
Right now I have it sketched out on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper. Each activity would have the written words (make your bed) to go along with the photograph (her making her bed)
There are several things she needs to do in the morning so next to each of those tasks we decided on a purple star stamp.
The things we do in the afternoon when we get home from school have the photo/word prompts as well as a green star
The night chores again have the word/photo prompts along with a red star.
She may need some help remembering what the colors mean but the photos can’t be misunderstood – so reading isn’t an issue!
Now we just need to get into the habit – which is where both she and I struggle…
but you know, I’m working on it!
Christall
another idea you might use for your pre-reader…(and I am “stealing” this one from the tv show SUPERNANNY, though I CAN’T believe that I am admitting that I watched that show), but you can make a chore chart for her, using drawings of the chores. as she completes each one, she can put an “X” under it (if it’s in graph form), or, as was shown on the tv program, you can make it a step by step thing…as she finishes one chore, she moves her marker (this was a picture of the kid on the show) to be under the next chore to complete. then, after all is done, her marker is all the way to the right side of the chart. If you wanted to include her in the process even more, you cold probably get your dughter to draw her own pictures of the chores to use! (just a thought…)
-Michelle
michellesimmons.typepad.com
Hi Abi
Here is a great link for children’s checklists. The main site is one you’ll also enjoy.
http://www.theproductivitypro.com/resources_checklists_for_children.html
I would love to join in on a pre-holiday challenge. Unfortunately, I came across your site after this latest 12 week challenge started.
I do enjoy your blog and website!
:~) Shawn