8 Tips for Cleaning with Kids

Hi All! I am Laura, a teacher and a mom of three. I wanted to offer some fun ideas of how to get your kids a little more excited about cleaning and picking up. I have to start by admitting that I am not the best housekeeper in the world. Cleaning isn’t always my forte, but playing with kids and having fun, that I can do! Here are a few things that we do at our house to make clean up time less of a shouting match and more of a play time.

 We use all of these things to encourage our kids to pick up. I have found that as I change things up and keep things new, my girls are more willing to work and play along. Sometimes we get the whole room picked up and sometimes we just work for a few minutes. But even if there isn’t a noticeable difference, they are still learning to help around the house and that work can be fun.

 

The whole family, daddy included, races for 10 minutes to pick up as fast as they can. We run everywhere we go to get as much cleaning done as possible. For younger kids, I give them an assignment like; you need to pick up all the blocks during our 10 minute tidy. You can adjust the time to fit your family’s need. You can even do 2 minute tidies during commercial breaks. You’d be surprised what you can get done in a short amount of time with everyone working together.

 

This works great with young kids. Give you child a certain type of toy to pick up (like stuffed animals) and they have to find and pick up only that type of toy. Then move on to the next category.

 

I created a punch box for my kids. I covered a narrow box in wrapping paper and then cut holes into the front. Each hole was about 4 inches in diameter. Then, I cleaned their room the way I want it to look when they are done and took pictures of each part of the room. (The bed, the dresser, inside the closet, the nightstand, and the floor broken up into a couple of parts.) I printed the pictures and laminated them . I taped each picture inside one of the holes in my box and then taped tissue paper over the holes. My kids punched through the tissue to grab the picture at the back of the box. They had to clean up their room so that it looked just like the picture before they could punch the next hole. When we tried this for the first time, I had a Hallelujah moment! My daughter picked up her whole room perfectly, the first time she was asked because she was so excited to punch the punch box!

 

Play I Spy and they have to put away whatever you spy. You can make it hard by using descriptions of the item or easy by just naming what the item is.

 

This is better for kids who know how to count on their own. All you need is a timer that counts down. I have used my microwave timer, timers online, and a little hand held timer that we own. I give them a number of things to pick up and a time limit to do it in. Then I say go and they race to beat the timer. I often keep it small like 15 things in 3 minutes. We’ve even done 5 things in 5 seconds for a challenge. Each time the clock runs out, I give them a new number and a new time limit. Sometimes if they are feeling especially reluctant, I will give a small prize if they beat the clock like a sticker or a small candy. Sometimes just a big high five works for the younger ones.

 

We play this when we are cleaning up before bed time. Shut off all or most of the lights and use a flashlight to “tag” an item to be put away. You can take turns who gets to hold the flashlight to make it more fun.

 

As a teacher I have lots of counting charts. One chart is a hundreds chart that has the numbers 1-100 in a 10 by 10 grid. I will assign a certain number of items to be picked up and the kids cross out one box for each item they put away until they reach the desired number. – Another way to do it is to just keep it small. As my kids are running by I tell them, “Pick up 5 (or 7 or 12 or . . .) things before you continue playing.”

 

 

Make a playlist of songs that you and your kids love to dance and sing along to. While the playlist is going, it’s clean up time. When the playlist is over, you’re done whether the job is done or not.

I have often found that telling my daughter, “Go clean your room” makes her stressed out because it seems like an insurmountable task. But when I break it up into little pieces or give her a time limit, she seems to respond a lot better to getting her chores done. We still have our days of whining and fits, but they are less likely to happen when we try to make cleaning fun!

 

Wow!  Those are some amazing ideas Laura!  I am so inspired and excited to try some of these tricks with Malea!  Thank you so much for sharing your great ideas with us.  To see more of Laura’s great ideas visit her website Chipman’s Corner Preschool.