Scheduling Our Days~ Part Five

Here we go!

6:00~ Wake up! , morning routine .
6:30~ Exercise/ shower
6:45~ Girls wake up, make beds, get dressed, have hair done
7:00~ Breakfast

7:30~ Breakfast clean-up, morning chores

Meal clean-up  is very simple.  The girls rotate meals weekly. This week Lydia is breakfast, Havilah is lunch and Bethany is dinner.  At this point the helper simply clears the dishes after the meal and washes the table.  After breakfast however, the lunch helper puts away the top of the dishwasher and the dinner helper puts away the bottom.  ( We keep all of our eat on dishes in a bottom cupboard so the girls are able to empty the dishwasher and set the table at a young age.)  During this time I am doing what very little breakfast clean-up there is.

Next come the morning chores.  When I sat down to organize our cleaning schedule, the first thing I did was right down ALL of our household chores. Then I divided them into daily, weekly and monthly chores.  The daily chores are our morning chores.

There conveniently are 12 daily chores (not counting make beds, laundry, pick up bedrooms etc., that are done at other times) that are easily divided into four groups for the four of us girls to accomplish.

We color code the four groups. They are~

Pick up living room floor, pick up upstairs hallway, pick up downstairs hallway

Pick up stairs and landing, pick up dining room floor, pick up office floor

Feather dust living room, wipe off bathroom counter, swish toilet

Sweep kitchen, sweep bathroom, vacuum living room/ dining room

Now Havilah can only do pink and green and Lydia is the only one who can do yellow, so it's not an equal rotation.  I'm sure there is a simpler way to keep track of it all, but I just print off blank calender sheets for each girl and write in which color they are doing each week.  We switch weekly. 

Morning chores run very smoothly. None of these are more than each girl can handle and accomplish in a very short amount of time.  The key to this part of the day is inspecting!  It takes an incredibly minuscule amount of time per chore, but it assures that a job is being done correctly and whole-heartedly. 

Havilah picking up the living room

Bethany gets the dining room looking ship-shape

Lydia wipes that counter 'til it shines!

Now I know that people have many different opinions about "making children work".  Let me assure you, our children are not our slaves.  We are in no way interested in "getting what we can" from our children.  Children thrive from responsibility.  Chores are fabulous for teaching diligence, patience and a good work ethic.  We believe strongly in work and play.  Both have a place and a right and wrong way to do it.

Do be careful when inspecting their chores to always be an encouragement.  They are young.  They won't do it like you.  They need to be gently trained how to do things to the best of their abilities. 

Our morning chores get us off to a flying start.  The house starts out looking ready for company, which has been a pretty foreign thing around here!

If something doesn't make sense to you, please feel free to ask about it!