Summer Chore List (Part 3 of Our Summer at Home)

Part 1: 5 Ways To Make Summer Parenting Easier

Part 2: Our Summer Fun List

Now summer can’t all be fun because dishes don’t wash themselves (sadly) so I’m implementing our summer chore time where the kids do at least one chore most days of the week.

Already we have some chores that are just done because family helps family and some that earn allowance because cleaning is the worst and learning to manage money is an important life skill. (The kids can also earn screen time or whatever a family feels is appropriate although I think food should not be a reward.)

I decided to create an allowance chore list on whiteboards. This way the kids could choose their chore to earn money each day. Some chores will stay up all week and some will only be up once per week.

Our list includes such fun activities as:

1. Clean your bathroom
2. Clean downstairs bathroom
3. Pick up the playroom (this can be done every day, and if you play as hard as my kids play, it really should be)
4. Pick up your bedrooms (we do a full room clean on Sunday mornings that isn’t allowance related but teaching the kids that picking up during the week will make Sundays better is a nice lesson too)
5. Do laundry (each step counts as a chore. now let’s not all rush to put the wash into the dryer.)
   1. Bring down dirty clothes and put in washer (I help with reminders about settings and laundry soap)
   2. Put wash into dryer
   3. Sort clothing into a basket for each family member
   4. Put away your clothing
6. Clear & wash kitchen table (it’s important to remind them to clear the table first because squirting my homemade clean solution is way more fun than getting the papers and toys and cats off the kitchen table)
7. Strip or make your bed

My big kids are 6 and 8 years old, and these are all chores they can handle with minimal help. Since I’m using a white board, I can alter chores to what we need each day or week so the house and the summer will run perfectly smooth and vaguely clean. I’m really looking forward to this working well for at least three weeks. Hey, that’s quarter of the summer clean! High five to me!