New Chores

We are still doing our chore box. It A M A Z E S me that we haven't been doing it that long! Just a few months ago, it was all new, now it is just part of what we do. Homeschool tip: start with ONE thing and then ADD to it. It has made all the difference to start SOMETHING and then use that as an "anchor" for other things.

We are figuring out our new systems. We have MORE to do here. At the old house, we never did anything outside-at all. Our goal at this new house is to KEEP IT WEEDED (not to mention ADDING a garden to weed). The property was PERFECT when we moved in and I want to keep it that way. Sooooo much easier to maintain perfection than to let it get overgrown and try to get it back.

Every day we go outside to weed a bed. Dan is learning to use the edger. We've been working on our garden (slowly). We are down to two bathrooms and one shower (yay)! I love our hardwoods and tile, way less carpet and easier care. We still do laundry everyday and empty the dishwasher. We're working on adding back in our Table Time and academics, but as I look back over the past couple months, I can see how much our lives have improved and the kids have received a whole new education with the move itself along with the new, rural lifestyle which gets us outside on a daily basis. REAL things!

Sarah's Weed Bouquet

We are finally getting settled. Most of the boxes are unpacked and I'm trying to move us back toward our routine we had before we decided to move.

In the last house, we let the yard get away from us. It never really looked as nice and tidy as it did when we moved in, so we are aware we need to add weeding to our chore list to keep the new house looking really cared for!

Today we went out to the "pool pasture" and weeded under the fencing. Sarah decided that her weeds would make a lovely bouquet. I agree.

More Chores-Index Card File

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!

Mommy's Helper TEAM

Starting today, both kids are Mommy's Helper for each meal, every day of every week. No more waiting around for someone to serve them. All three of us are preparing each and every meal! I am pleasantly surprised how this is becoming a habit and how much they are growing in skill in the kitchen. How I wish I had kept them close to me in the kitchen from a young age!

UPDATE: 4/12/12 Wednesday...I'm amazed at how competent both are becoming! Less whining and complaining each day. What a blessing to our family life to have all of us preparing meals together!

UPDATE: 11/15/12 Thursday...I don't make the kids lunches ANY MORE! They seem to do it all now! Dan is "broccoli man" and prepares our roasted broccoli with me several times a week.

Meatloaf Man

It is Daniel's week again to be Mommy's Helper. He is making meatloaf for the second time...it was DELICIOUS!

My Mommy's Helper

Daniel and I have been working together this week. He has been helping with meals, setting and clearing the table and putting dishes in the dishwasher. This is a big adjustment for all of us. He is quickly increasing in skill and service. He wants to plan a dinner and we were going to do that this week, but the snow put a keebosh on grocery shopping. Monday will start Sarah's week again.

More Chores - Mommy's Helper

I decided it is time for my kids to help in the kitchen. When we started homeschooling, I felt it was important to establish some important routines like eating meals together. To make that happen, I did all the meals...planning, prep and clean up. But now it is time for the kids to do some of these jobs. Thus, New and Improved for 2012 introducing "Mommy's Helper". No longer do they sit and wait to be served! Breakfast, lunch and dinner I call "I need Mommy's Helper"...Dan is assigned one week and Sarah is assigned for the next. They are quickly learning how to cook and slice and dice! Sarah is enjoys lots of sensory input and always wants to hold the egg yolks!

I knew starting something like this would evoke whining and complaining and gnashing of teeth, so I fortified my willpower and love quotient to endure the lashing. I'm very certain after we do this week in and week out, all that will subside. I haven't heard any complaints in a long time about emptying the dishwasher since I've stood firm that it must be emptied first thing in the morning before eating. Sarah is wearing John's apron from when he was FOUR! That makes it VINTAGE!

I know this is probably very normal for most people but I never had a system for planning and preparing meals (you can read about that HERE). And now with that system in place and a tidy kitchen, we can cook together!

DLD-Dirty Laundry Duty

Dirty Laundry Duty. Usually on Mondays the kids bring down all the dirty clothes. This stack is more than a week's worth since we went camping. WHY do my children like to play in the dirty laundry!?!??! This drives John CRAZY! But he doesn't read this blog, so we're good. :) Can you find the little darlings under the clothes? It's like Where's Waldo!

New Homeschool Routine/Time Blocks

It works awesome for me to look at the "morning routine" then lunch then "productive free time" then dinner then evening.

More Family Chores-Play Room

I'm in the season of planning and perfecting our routine. Part of our new afternoon routine is a "family chore". Yesterday we tackled Daniel's counter in the play room (which is really our family room converted to a "play" space, though I like to think of it as an "educational laboratory"). Today (Thursday) I put off the family chore, we'll do Sarah's side tomorrow.

The first photo doesn't really show the HEAP of stuff that was on his counter. The top photo is after we'd sorted and cleared a lot of stuff away. The 2nd photo is today...he has a few things on the counter (not to mention the duct tape that says "Dan") and he's USED his counter several times today. He even did his math there this morning. The process continues...

New Routines On Paper

Early on I figured out I wasn't a "by-the-hour" type of scheduler for our homeschool day. I prefer blocks of time (which is what Marilyn suggests in her book Develop A Lifestyle Routine). I post a monthly calendar so we can see what "events" we have each month. And now I have my new time blocks up which really helps us move through our mornings.

Our mornings are very fluid. Sometimes we want to play cards together or read and don't always have breakfast in the same order so it is nice to have a list of what we want to accomplish. Here's what's our our morning time block looks like for now:
-put on one hour of worship music
-kids empty dishwasher
-eat breakfast
-morning chore
-do bookwork (right now that includes: math & copywork)
-mom reads: history (we're currently using H.A. Guerber's Story of Ancient World) and fun reading
-brush teeth & brush hair
-Daniel shower

Season 4-Liberating Your Routine

Reading Marilyn's book.

Life Is Truly A Process - CHORES

Well, I've been convicted that I need to do some more bookwork with the kids so along with that comes looking at my routine. This brings up the need to add some more chores to do together (since they have mastered the one daily chore they are responsible for) so they can learn how to sort (thanks Marilyn!) and clean things.

The kids have a "personal chore" each day except Friday and it gets done before lunch each day. We've been doing that for about 6 months, so we don't have complaining anymore, amazing, they just do it.
Monday-bring down dirty laundry
Tuesday-collect upstair garbage together
Wednesday-strip sheets of beds
Thursday-take up clean folded laundry

Along with this I'm wanting to add a "family chore" for us to do together. Especially, since we have major clutter (A serious MESS!) Life is such a process, yet each moment adds up to a lifetime...so I'm trying to focus on the moments (not the "destination").

I selected a small area for us to sort and clean together today...and we did SO MUCH MORE! WOW, I'm so excited! We needed to vacuum the dining room (Daniel OFFERED to vacuum!) so we did that together and went down the hall and vacuumed the entry, too. Our official family chore was to sort and clean the upstairs hallway (about 4'x12') and stairs. Seems small but it was covered with STUFF (do you know what I mean?) So, I told the kids to sort like-things-with-like...a brilliant way to clean! Marilyn mentioned "teaching your kids to sort while cleaning" on Tuesday night and just this one thought has helped ME focus and helped me model for them. They caught on, though I did the most which was fine. We'll certainly be doing more of this (soon)!

Laaaaa la la la laallalaallaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! We have clean stairs and hallway!