If you’re new to the 31 day series, over 1200 bloggers have chosen a theme they want to write about every day in October ranging from food or fashion to faith or fabric. See the whole list at The Nester. I decided to focus on trying to be a better mom, and you can see my first post here.
Day 8: Work with the kids
Each of my three kids has a list of jobs they are to complete in the morning before school. Really just 2 of them go to school, but they each have a list. Their list is fairly long, but they don’t get on the bus until 8:45, so there is time for them to get everything done. Their list includes things like getting dressed, fixing hair, putting dishes in the dishwasher, cleaning up in their room, sweeping up after the goats, and 2 “job jar” chores.
I put a variety of jobs on sticks and they have to each pull out 2 and do them. One black one, and one colored one. The black ones are jobs that I’d like to have done more frequently, so there are fewer of them, and when they run out I put them back in. The colored ones are replaced when they too are all gone.
Here are some examples of the black sticks:
Wipe toilets (clorox wipe)
Wipe sinks (bathroom, clorox wipe)
Wipe doorknobs and light switches (clorox wipe)
Mirrors
Mop kitchen (swiffer mop with a wet rag towel on it)
Here are some examples of colored sticks:
Dust living room and family room
Wipe baseboards in various parts of the house (baby wipe)
Vacuum bedrooms
Sweep back porch
When we first started this I kind of showed them how to do the jobs they didn’t already know how to do, but the idea is that I can send them off on their own to do them.
Today I had them tell me when they were about to start and I worked along with them. Partly just to see how they were doing 🙂 But partly so that I could take the opportunity to thank them for the work they were doing and let them know I thought they were doing a good job.
What kinds of jobs do you have your kids do? How often do you work with them?
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