Chores in a Box

The notes I got when I came home last night,
after they cleaned the whole house!

This year, I pretty much just blasted past the new year's resolutions list.  Instead, I decided to focus on purposing to make my life and my attitude more pleasing to Christ, in everything. However, there are a few practical things I've been attempting to do differently this year, and in case anyone is interested in the least bit, I thought I'd share.

This last year I hired a house cleaner--we decided it would come out of our homeschooling budget. It was nice in that it freed me up mentally to focus on homeschooling. And while I liked having the entire house cleaned in one day, recently I made the decision to drop that and clean my own house (earth shattering!!!)  For one thing, we are about to start some major remodeling on our house, so saving up for that might be wise.  For another thing, I felt like my children need to be more involved in housekeeping and to stop asking when the "maid" was coming!!!

So, what have I been doing differently?
1) Living with a dirtier house
2) Assigning one chore per day, per child
3) Being soooo thankful when my amazing husband and children decide to clean the house while I'm out for a girls' night (seriously, this happened just last night, and it's not the first time!)

How does it work?
~I simply wrote out on index cards all the chores I could think of, separately, and put them in an order that made sense.  Now my children each pick one a day and sign their name on the back so the next time the other child will do that chore.  These box chores are in addition to the normal tasks they do daily, such as making the bed, clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher, or cleaning up toys.  The box chores include things like dusting, wiping cabinets, cleaning toilets, wiping baseboards, etc. I threw in some cards for me too, so that I have a chore to do each day as well.

What do my children think?
~They jump to it.  It's manageable.  One chore seems like nothing to them, but little do they know they are actually doing more than they've ever done before.

Do they get allowances?
~Yes, when we think about it.  They haven't gotten allowances in like 6 months though!

How's their attitude?
~Yesterday they decided to fight alot as they were doing their normal chore, so I made them chose an extra card.  Nice, now my house is dusted too.  :)

Anyway, my house is never "clean" all at the same time, but it's nice to know that something is clean every day.  And I think it keeps us productive and not lazy. I'm sure many of you are way more creative than I am, but I've tried chore charts and all that and I never can keep up with them.  Simple is better for me.