Guest Post : Stepping Up the Chores

Summer is a great time...sunny days...days at the beach...vacations...and NO SCHOOL.  But although, the school work may have stopped, the learning doesn't have to.  How can you take a break this summer, yet be proactive to prepare for the rest of the year?

 One thing I will be doing in my home is advancing personal chore work.

All three of my kids, ages 6, 8, and 9, already help out with the cleaning around the house.  But as they get older, I assign them more responsibility.  Summer is a great time to teach them helpful life skills because we all have fewer school responsibilities during these months. They can learn specific cleaning skills, practice them all summer long, and be completing them with excellence by the time school starts again.

Here are just a few of the skills we will be working on this summer:

Laundry
All my kids help with the laundry. They have been taught how to fold it and put it away. This summer, they will be learning to sort it, an easy task that will save me time. Abigail, my 9-year-old, will also learn how to do laundry from its beginning to end.

Sweeping
Since we are home all day, our house gets a lot of foot traffic. Sweeping is at least a daily job. My younger two children sweep when I ask them too, but don't necessarily get the job done well. This summer, I plan to take some extra time to show them how to sweep every nook and cranny, so that I don't have to re-sweep up after them anymore.

Mopping
Our house has very little carpet and with daily tramping, I usually have to mop twice a week. I will be teaching my girls how to do this chore, so I can have one less task on my weekly "to do" list.

Dusting
My kids dust occasionally.  But although they do a pretty decent job, they could learn to be more meticulous, especially when cleaning our bookshelves.  We have a LOT of bookshelves.  Currently, the kids dust around the books.  But, it would be more beneficial to actually get the books off the shelf and then dust it. This is a time-consuming job that I rarely get done.  But if I can teach them to be responsible for it this summer, I can have them do it periodically throughout the school year.

Bathrooms
My son, Joel, is only 6, but he can learn how to do the daily cleaning of the bathroom...wiping down the sink and brushing the toilet. Because my girls have already learned how to do the daily bathroom routine, it might be time for them to learn how to do a more thorough, deeper cleaning.  I can teach them my weekly regimen and let them finally have a try at scrubbing the tub!

So that's my tentative plan for teaching a few life skills during our school break.

What chores will you be passing on to your kids this summer?

Paula is the homeschooling mother of three. She writes about homeschool, faith, homemaking, healthy living, and her family at Average Housewife. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

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