During the homeschool year, I have a hard time keeping the house as clean as I’d like it. On most school days I begin supper about the time that we close the school books. There just tends to be little time left for cleaning the house. Most house work gets pushed to Saturdays and it seems to consume the entire day.
I’ve seen many other homeschoolers who spread the house work out over the week but I seem to only be able to stay on top of clothes, cooking, kitchen cleaning, and the little odds & ends that can be done in 15 minutes or less.
One of my favorite blogs to visit, The Lockwood family, uses a white board that the mom has written out chores for their Saturday cleaning. I figured that I’d give it a try and have everyone pitch in to help get the house clean. I wrote down the housework that needed to be done and gave the jobs to people that I felt could handle the work. It worked wonderfully. David and I helped some of the younger children with their new chores but I figure with time that they won’t need as much help. When the weather warms ups, there will probably be more outside chores on the chart. I’m also thinking of adding a few small deep cleaning chores that are often overlooked until they are out of hand. Perhaps everyone will clean one dresser drawer a week or something like that.
The board worked so well that we were able to all work together to clean the house in a little over an hour. After that, we were able to spend more time together as a family and this mom was less stressed.
* Please excuse the look of the board. Sometimes little hands use permanent markers instead of dry erase. Such is the life in a family with kids. :0)
What a great idea! The housework does not seem so overwhelming when everyone jumps in to help.
ReplyDeleteI can get very overwhelmed when there is a ton of housework to do. It really does help to have everyone pitch in. I must admit, though, that I'm pretty bad about getting everyone to help. I call it the "oldest child syndrome". It seems like every oldest child tends to do it all themselves. I'm getting better about delegating. In a family with five kiddos, it seems necessary. :)
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