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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Family Cleaning Hour

I just realized I have a "Works for me Wednesday"! And it's Wednesday!!
(Maybe next week I'll even import the cute little icon that goes with it.)


Someone commented to me that we always were having fun. Which we are. As I thought about that though I decided I needed to show a more accurate picture of how things are around here. For posterity's sake.
We do try and have fun every day. After all "men are that they might have joy". Real joy however doesn't come from playing all the time. It comes from work and praying and playing.

We work together every day, we also worship together every day. And we play. Probably the kids like the playing the best but I suspect the more important part is the work. And I know the most important part is the worship. We have family prayer in the morning. Family scripture study and prayer at night. We bless our food at each meal. We have FHE once a week. We observe the Sabbath together each week. And we encourage each family member to pray and study individually each day. Like most families we have good days, and bad. Good weeks and bad even. But we keep trying.
Over the years we have tried a lot of different methods to make our cleaning experience successful. We've tried the pull a chore out of a jar method, the chore wheel, the here's your partner/ here's your list, and many others. The attempts have all had some success but what we do now is my favorite. Every day or so I tell the kids it's "family cleaning hour". Then we all go from room to room together doing what needs to be done. At first we did each room as a big group. Now we go to different parts of the house and work side by side in usually two rooms. For example if two are in a bathroom cleaning the rest will be in the bedroom next door cleaning that. When the kids can see each other working and see me working it goes the best. I guess no one feels like Cinderella and can contribute their best effort with a happy heart. Every day everyone is assigned work to do. Family Cleaning Hour is a more comprehensive effort.

So the picture on the top is S cleaning the frog bathroom upstairs. Next is all the kids picking popcorn kernels off the game room floor (BTW~ no one knows how they got there but there they were). J is creative in her approach, but as long as the job gets done that's fine with me.

H vacuuming the little girls room.

J mopping the cowboy bathroom, this is the last step in each room and so they are alone while the rest of the crew has moved on .
E helping to dust.

G putting toys into baskets in E's room. Everyone helps in every room whether they sleep there, brush their teeth there or never even step a toe inside it except during cleaning hour. That way we avoid the "it's not my mess" dilemma.

Another benefit to this method is I can teach by example how I want things done. And I can find things they have hidden when they work indepedently. Now, none of my actual children do this but somehow we have dirty clothes, and dishes and sometimes toys or books stuffed in little corners, cabinets and closets. It's a mystery to all how it happens but the important thing is we can fix it during family cleaning hour.

Even the littles can help. G loves to put things in boxes, to unload the dishwasher, to be given a baby wipe to dust with. Things don't actually get cleaner with her help but maybe she's learning some good habits.
You would think with all these great helpers, and great plans that everything would always be picked up and tidy and sparkly clean. I wish.

We still struggle with clutter and cheerful work faces and getting everything done...or even part of everything. I guess we're a work in progress. But maybe someday!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is a great method! I think we're going to try that. How did you come up with that?

Cheri said...

I love that idea because I'm always hearing "but I didn't make that mess"
We'll have to try this out!

Code Yellow Mom said...

What a terrific idea - I'm such a "divide and conquer" type work planner, but this really struck me - how quickly it must go when you are working all together and seeing each other work on cleaning a room or two as a team. A really fabulous idea...thanks for sharing!

Mel said...

What a great idea! I think I will try this. It seems like it would work better than the job chart I have which always needs to be updated or it is lost.

Millie said...

THANK YOU. I needed this!

utmommy said...

What a smart sister. Since TX we have started to try this. It worked there, so it should work here too!

Joyismygoal said...

You are so smart!!!! I wish we had done that, maybe The few of us left can try this:) We had siuccess w/ the choose the chore the jobs got done but they always chose the same and got good at a few but not all things. so i love your way.