Saturday Jobs

In my first "Clean Your House in 10 minutes a day" post I shared that we have a cleaning day on Saturday. Today I'm going to expand on that a little more.

When my oldest two were 3 and 5 years old I started having them help me clean the bathroom each week. It was a lot of work. You basically have to do it with them. And sometimes do it again after them to get it done right. But I'm so glad that I started doing that. They now know that Saturday is cleaning day. {During the summer we do it on Mondays - that way it frees up Saturday morning to check out yard sales}

 It started out with them helping with the tub and the sink. Now that there are four kids they basically clean the whole bathroom. Which is only fair since they use it the most. We have a little pie chart that they rotate each week to see what job they do: Sink, toilet, tub,and mop/mirror.  Now my youngest two are 3 and 5 so they still need help and direction in cleaning, but my older two have got it down. Although they don't always get it as clean as I would, that's ok. I help my 3 year old with whatever job she has, so at least once a month everything gets a good scrubbing.

Besides the kids bathroom, I also clean my bathroom and then vacuum the house and sweep the kitchen. Sometimes I mop. Okay.... Okay.... I confess I rarely mop. I try to clean up spills as they come so I don't have to mop as much. If I mop once a month then I'm patting myself on the back.

I think the biggest thing is making it a habit. The kids are still young enough to think it's fun and as they get older they'll just know that's what we do. There are a few weeks of the year {holidays or vacations} that we don't get it done, but mostly we just do it.