This week we have been doing spring cleaning. Rather than have a giant to do list that I have to force the kids (and husband) into doing. I wrote down lots of little portions of the chores on slips of paper and put them in a hat.
Most things were easy like 'put away 6 things from the car'. Or 'dust any one room'.
Some were a bit more involved like 'Get down Summer clothes' or 'Plant garden'.
Then I added in short fun slips like "Get a spoonful of ice cream', or "Run under hose for 5 minutes.'
We shook them all up in a hat and the kids got to pull one out at a time. I made two rules.
1. At least two chores between fun.
2. If you want me to let you do whatever fun you draw, you have to do whatever work you draw.
3. Mommy gets to decide if a chore has to go back for you to draw again (I can only handle being on my feet so long right now!)
Over the last few days I actually had to yell at the kids to get their fingers out of the 'chore hat'!
Plus I discovered it was fun for Baby girl, she would honestly sit on my lap, for a long time picking a slip of paper and opening them up for me to read. I finally took a few more slips and put some numbers and letters on them so she could tell me what was on them.
I never would have thought a 'lottery' would be a fun way to teach kids. (nor could I have guessed how much cleaning kids would do for it!)
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