Family Chores {Part 1}

With 6 kids I am constantly being asked how we handle chores in our house. What kids do what chores? Do we pay for chores? What age do you start chores? How do you take care of all that laundry? etc. There are lots more but you get the idea, so I thought I would share what works for us.

I homeschool so we are home all day long everyday which means our house is always busy and can get messy in the blink of an eye. Without a plan my house would be a wreck all the time!! I have tried many things over the years but I have been doing this system for the last couple of years and it seems to work the best for us.

First make a list of all the things that need to be done everyday to make your house run smoothly. My list looks like this….

Vacuum family room

Breakfast dishes in dishwasher

Wash and dry one load of laundry

Sweep under kitchen table

Unload dishwasher (top and bottom and can be split into two chore areas)

Feed and Water Dogs Morning/Evening

Alternate cleaning sliding glass door and dusting family room

Vacuum dining room/living room alternate days

Sort dirty laundry into baskets (I have a container in my laundry room that we sort the laundry into. We sort clothes into colors, whites, and darks)

Swish and swipe main bathroom (Clean counters, mirror and tidy up. Clean toilet and floors on Saturday.)

Swish and swipe girls upstairs bathroom

Get my 3 year old and 1 year old dressed

Empty bathroom trash cans (every couple of days)

This is my current list but I tend to revise it every 6 months and it is about time to do it again. I like my kids to rotate chores about that often so that they learn how to do each of the things in the house instead of just one area. Each of the 3 big girls (ages 11, 9, 8) gets 3 morning chores. I let them choose one and assign the other two. My 6 year old is an apprentice right now and is learning how to empty the dishwasher and sort the laundry.  She is the reason that I need to redo our list now because she is ready to have her own assignment. I will probably keep her as a helper for a new chore and keep an old chore as her own responsibility.  My three year old empties the bathroom trash cans and helps with the dishwasher and with taking the laundry out of the dryer.

I don’t currently have an evening chore list except the feed and water dogs. We do a family clean up of the down stairs in the evening and a group cleaning of any other area that needs our attention.  Often this ends up being the upstairs hallway or the girls upstairs bathroom.

All of these chores are done for free. They contribute to the house because they live here. I do offer pay chores for other things that I want done that go above and beyond their normal chores. I will have a post coming up soon all about pay chores so make sure you check back!!!

Hope you find this info useful and I would love to hear what works in your families so if  you have other ideas please share!!!