For quite awhile, I've printed a daily checklist for each child with responsibilities and individual chores. Included with our normal routine and meals are chores and daily things "to-do" like brushing hair and teeth along with independent studies like math. But I realized as I wanted to increase our responsibility by doing more chores together, it was becoming difficult to fit everything on the daily sheet.
Since the sheets have become habit, I decided to move us over to a card system to accommodate my growing list. I first read about this in
Sidetracked Home Executives and then found that my friend used this system successfully in her home.
I made a spreaadsheet of all the things we do now and then added things I want to start doing. I coded each item according to who does it and on what day. Then I started making cards.
Each of us has a stack in the front for our daily items. Weekly chores go behind the day tabs. On Thursdays we vacuum, so there's a card in the Thursday section that reads "vacuum". In Monday, there are four cards...one for each bathroom and a card for the showers. Week 1 is bathroom 1, week 2 is bathroom 2, week 3 is bathroom 3 and week 4 is for cleaning the showers. We've already done two bathrooms!
Each bathroom requires seven steps (done top to bottom):
-dust lights/fan
-mirror
-sink
-counter
-inside toilet
-outside toilet
-floor
Breaking down the steps, like I did with the laundry, makes this seems really simple! Sarah has been doing the mirror and counter, Dan does the dusting, fan and lights, inside of the toilet bowl and sink, I do the rest-we go top to bottom. Just like with making lunches, someday they will be skilled to do these things on their own. Maintaining this chore box helps me stay on task, not letting myself off the hook when something needs to be cleaned!
How did we get here? The process has been organic and very gradual. I've been noticing what we ARE doing and also taking note of what we still NEED to accomplish. It is AMAZING how the laundry is just a NON-issue now that we run a load every morning and fold a load every morning. We start our day with a load of laundry while yesterday's load is fluffing in the dryer. Then we fold that load. I rarely have to do laundry on the weekends and rarely do more than one load a day. We have our system in place and it is working-hooray!
I'm eager to get systems in place for the bathrooms, cleaning the car, washing a few windows, sweeping, etc. I've never in my whole life been able to conquer this area in my life, so this is really exciting! We've just kept adding little things as the days and weeks and months go by.
When we started homeschooling over three years ago, my children weren't responsible for any chores. I had never taken the time to train them how to do things. As I've become more loving, our relationships have healed a lot and I have much more influence over my children as we endeavor to do real life together...and chores are very REAL!
