How to Organize Little Chores

Does the thought of spring cleaning both excite and exhaust you?

So, how are we going to get those normal chores done and the “spring cleaning” items we rarely get to handle? Child Labor!

Having four kids, 5-years-old and under, we had to recruit their help early. Here are some of the ways we helped our kids get in on helping keep-up the house with daily little chores that are easy for littles to accomplish. Organization helps you and your child keep on top of the daily so once they’re in the swing of helping with those things on your list, you’ll be free to do those rare spring cleaning items on your bigger list!

How to Organize Little Chores:

Chore Chart

Coming up with some sort of ‘system’ will help you and your children remember who has what responsibility each day. We use an adorable Melissa and Doug “Responsibility Chart” {aff link} but there are tons of other ideas out there! Hello Pinterest 😉

Rotation

Rotating their “jobs” will help them learn basic chores well rather than just one that they have already mastered. This will also keep it from being mundane. With three of my littles “on the chore chart” now, I have each of them do 2 different chores every other day for a week. The next week, they switch.

Training

Don’t underestimate training your child how you want the chore completed. Investing this time early on will minimize the stress of having “helpers” down the road. We try to do the simple watch, help, do philosophy. The amount of time spent on each step depends on how long each child needs.

1. child watches someone do the chore correctly
2. child helps someone do the chore and then someone helps child to make sure they understood
3. do it themselves

“Allowance”

We teach our children that helping with daily chores is a responsibility of everyone in the family because everyone in the family makes the messes. This can be a tool for servant-hood as well. We choose to give an allowance simply to allow us a tool to teach our littles about finances. The wages are based on the child and level of understanding and so far, we’ve only worked our way up to nickles.

• Bread Ties: for the child who is learning to count but may not be responsible enough for coins {2-3 years old}
• Pennies: for the child who counts well and can start learning about the value of actual money {3-4 years old}
• Nickles: for the child who is learning to count by 5s {4-5}
  

Simplify Chores

Along with training your child, making chore simple can reduce stress as well.

• Empty Dishwasher and Set the Table
  We put these two together because they are logically linked: you have to empty the dishwasher to have dishes to set the table with. We organized our kitchen so our children could access daily dishes easily and other items get stacked on the counter for a parent to put away higher.
• Laundry {move or sort} and Trash {collect and replace bags}
  We do one load a night and the child is responsible for moving the wet laundry into the drier and then sorting dry laundry into the appropriate {labeled} baskets. We have sacrificed folding for now but once a week we put laundry away as a family.
  We have small trashcans and a container of {grocery} bags are in each bathroom for easy trash collection and bag replacement. Small bathroom trash bags are taken to the the large can in the kitchen that is emptied by daddy but once a week they help take the trash to the curb for pick-up.
• Sweep and Vacuum {as needed}
  The vacuum and brooms storage is in a place for the child to access independently. We recently purchased a small “toy” broom set and the size difference has really helped them handle this chore better and therefor learn to do it correctly {and faster!}.

Do you have a chore your are eager for your children to learn? With spring in the air and your children well on their way to pulling their weight, what are your big plans for cleaning? If you need help, check out the series we did here at the Homemaker’s Challenge a while back, 31 Days to Clean!