Cleaning Archives - Page 2 of 14

Our Family Chore Chart

January 20, 2014 by Jules 2 Comments

Today is Jamin's first day of officially being "on the chore chart". 🙁

I've been postponing this...it just seems too soon. This means he is really growing up 🙁 My younger kids have always though it "unfair" when the older kids got to "help" by doing chores. Every once in a while I would 'let them' help the olders do the chore. Last week was Jamin's official "training week".

All that was supposed to mean was Jamin tagged along with Maggie when she did her chores and watched. What it ended up being was Maggie, the master leader that she is, called Jamin to her when she was asked to do her chore and talked him through how to do each one...step. by. step. Izzie thought she wanted a turn at being his "trainer" but got really irritated quickly and didn't pull it off as easily as Mags did. lol He learned where dishes belong, how to sort laundry, and was already very aware of how the coveted "set the table" chore worked.

One of the things that has helped me is this "responsibility chart" we've had for several years now. I found mine at a consignment event but you can buy the same chart HERE <--affiliate link fyi. I like the chart because it keeps me from asking my oldest to do everything; because I know it will get done, get done right, and it's just easier. Here is how we use our chart:

Basic Chores

This chart comes with tons of "responsibility" options. There are lots of them that are just expected in our house {ie "Say Please & Thank You", "Don't Use Bad Language"}. Then there are some we've labeled "morning chores" {ie "Make Bed", "Get Dressed"} and these are things everyone is supposed to do every morning. The basic chores we are teaching our littles to currently help with are:

Set the Table: decides where everyone sits as well as what color plate they use
Dishes: I have most dishes in lower cabinets for them to reach; they place other items that go higher on the counter for me to put away
Laundry: sorts into clean baskets {we'll work on folding later}, everyone helps put away clothes over the weekend.
[help with] Trash: [helps daddy] bring trash bags from bathrooms, carry out recycling, and take to the curb on the appropriate night
Sweep: dinning room & kitchen daily, bathrooms and laundry room as needed
Vacuum: living room daily, bedrooms as needed

I like to have the same person do Set the Table and Dishes on the same day so if there are no dishes for them to set out they can see the direct correlation between the chores as well as why its important to do these things daily. I have just now started 'training' how to sweep & vacuum so I put those two together and only assign that to the older girls {who are more capable}.

Smiley Face Assignment

I think this chart may have been designed for "earning" smiley faces but since we expect them to help out around the house, we just assign "jobs" they're "allowed" to help with and we take down/replace the smile with a different color if they don't end up doing it that day.

Pink: Maggie {5-years-old}
Purple: Izzie {4-years-old}
Blue: Jamin {3-years-old}
Orange, Yellow, Green: everyone/whoever Mom & Dad's choose

Since the "basic chores" are things that need to be done daily, all I have to do is ask "whose on ____ today" and that person is in charge of doing that chore right then.

Allowance

I'm not sure if allowance is the right term but we "allow" our kids to have money as a way for us to start teaching preschool finances 101; the chores are just a good excuse to do that.

Bread Tie: represents money- can choose to 'spend' them on things
Penny: when we start working on counting and are responsible enough to keep up with the money
Nickle: when they start counting by 5s

At the end of the week, we count which chores were completed and hand out allowance. Then we have them put them into their bank S we made; this is how we teach them about generosity and budgeting.

Don't forget, it's never too early to have children do chores. The early you start, the easier it becomes a habit and helps the entire family in the long run. Their perspective of household chores is all based on how you present it; we choose to show these chores as a privilege to those who are old enough.

Our philosophy has always been, We all helped make the mess so we will all help clean up the mess. Don't get me wrong. I've had to let go of a lot of my perfect ideals, and tons of my organizational tendencies for the details. BUT we get the major stuff done...most of the time. Helping with household chores is also a way children learn about serving one another, being considerate, and responsibility.

Filed Under: Cleaning, Homemaker, Homeschool, Organizing, Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Girls’ Room {Settled In September}

September 26, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

I talked earlier about purposely "theming" the kids' room for genders. This will eventually be the bedroom for all 3 princesses. I think this general girliness will last for years.

On the large blank wall, we have 2 twin beds in each corner. The post bed {that matches the dresser} was given to us by my sweet aunt after my cousin outgrew it. The trundle bed was my bed growing up and was my mom's and her sister's before that. It started as a medium brown wood before I painted it off-white for our guest room and then white for the girls room.We've always used the trundle part {not popped up} as the next step/toddler bed before moving into a tall twin bed.

Hope you enjoyed it. Oh, and yes, that is a black out curtain. It helps with naps and bedtime. I do have really cute colored sheers that are going to be hung as soon as I go buy a cheap curtain rod. 😀

Eventually, there will be a large "princess" tower in the middle of this wall. Magdalene means "high tower". The castle will have a banner on the top that reads, "Devoted Promise" for our Isabella {devoted to God} and Elizabeth {oath of God}. I am now waiting to let our awesome artistic friend do their castle/tower as well because, for real, you can't have J's room next to my sad tower now. lol

{castle for inspirational affect}
This dresser was given to us with the post bed. The shelves are simple wood cut to the length we wanted it, painted and attached to the shelf braces I found at a yard sale years ago. I was going to paint them white but ended up leaving them yellow & think the extra color is fun.

I'm not gonna lie. This part of the room feels cluttered. We purposely keep their rooms simple and don't have toys in the kids room because

we want them to sleep without the temptation to play with toys
we know there needs to be plenty of room for beds/dress(es) in the long run

They are getting older and have random "stuff" and I've slowly let it leak into their rooms. More high school era frames with pictures of just the kids who share the room, painting the girls did with our sweet "Ms Biwee", piggy banks, iPod with sleep time music, and hair things both in and on the "headband holder" as well as the matching jewelry boxes their Uncle Andrew gave them that were cluttering up their bathroom which is also the guest bath have moved in here. I'm not sure if it will all stay or not.

Here's the dresser organization:
Currently, both girls pretty much wear the same size which makes it easy to do laundry as well as purchase clothes. I know this won't always be the case so we are practicing minimalism already. The girls do have their own drawers for PJs and shorts/pants since those seem to matter more than the size of shirts or dresses.

We also have the awesome wire shelves from the pantry installed in here for the girl's bed linens! Love it!!! This keeps them easily accessible and make the higher shelf open for larder-sized hand-me-downs and other randomness. {these are the kind of shelves that will be in J's closet as well}
On the back of their door we have a simple shoe divider used for just that, sorting shoes and other accessories. Larger things like boots remain in the corner of the closet but it keeps most shoes/flip flops tucked away.
Outside the closet is this adorable princess crown our artistic student from the valley made the girls. I added a dowel rod with ribbons hanging off of it so we could use it as a bow holder instead of the sad one I made along time ago.
The same awkward wall that pokes out when you come into this bedroom we also used for decoration. The long white shelf came from our living room and the smaller one was part of another black set and I painted it white to match the other stuff in this room. Elephants were sweet gifts and Ellie will get one when she arrives. Letters are already for all 3 girls even though it will be awhile before El joins the girls in here.
That's the girly room!

Filed Under: Cleaning, Decorating, Home Tour, Homemaker, Organizing, Projects, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Playroom Organization {Settled In September}

September 20, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

I have posted in the past about our system of centers. I've even created center labels as well as names for the kids to "check in and out of" centers to try and maintain organization and get them to clean their own toys up. This worked for a while and Definitely works with large numbers of children {ie daycares/preschools} but it got a little legalistic in our house and I wanted to simplify when we moved.

This time I made new tags {and still have some to be completed} to label the baskets. I LOVE the baskets, bens, tubs, whatever you call these canvas things. They keep everything organized while making it simple to put things away- chunk it back into the basket!

Library Basket
Home Library {sorted}
Playdough Center
Electronic Center
Puzzle Center
Computer Center
Baby Toys
Ball Center
Music Center
Dress-Up Characters
Potato Heads
Wooden Blocks
Vehicles
Mega Blocks
Homeschool Supplies
Little People Center {village}
HIPPY School Work
Dress-Up Accessories

Inside our closet we have the Doll Shelf & the Dress-Up Costumes/Outfits as well as extra books {for higher level reading}, large toys {pop-up tent & tube}, and scrapbook supplies on the top shelf.

In case you were wondering:

red book basket {hanging on the wall}- $2 flea market find/spray painted planter
black bookshelves- Wal-Mart {similar to THIS tall one and THIS short one}
plastic book bins {on top of shelves}- oriental trading {wish I had a gazillion more}
labels- homemade printable {available at the end of the month}
square canvas bins {ON SALE}- target, home depot, anywhere I could find them cheap
rectangle canvas bin {one in doll shelf as well as other places throughout the house}- Wal-Mart {years ago}
doll house/shelf- handmade by my grandparents YEARS ago & revamped a few years ago
quilt rack {dress-up storage}- Pier1 as a wedding gift years ago

Filed Under: Cleaning, Decorating, Homemaker, Homeschool, Organizing, Parenting, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Schoolroom Organization {Settled In September}

September 19, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

In our school/playroom I have created spaces that will help us “do school” more easily. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t do 100% of our “school” in this room but its nice to have have a space to store these items.

In the corner where I’ve set up their preschool table, I have our “school corner”. This is where we are doing morning routine which includes:

Chores and rewarding “smilies” for those completed
Daily routine chart. We talk about what can be expected that day. They may also come look at this first thing in the morning if they can’t remember what they should be doing before school starts.
Calendar wall. Here we talk about the month, date, year, day of the week, weather, season, telling time with clocks

This table is also were we do most of our paper school work with coloring, handwriting, workbooks, etc.
On the other side of the room where our wall of shelves are, we have our library and other supplies organized among the other toys.

"Messy" or "get permission" supplies are of course up higher.

To see the rest of the school/playroom organization, read THIS post.

Filed Under: Cleaning, Homemaker, Homeschool, Organizing, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Laundry: Hanging Laundry Basket Shelf {Settled In September}

September 17, 2013 by Jules 1 Comment

Yesterday, I told you about the madness that was the moving of the shelves in the laundry room. Today, I wanna show you the awesome hanging laundry basket shelf my hubs made me.

The Laundry Basket Shelf: THIS was inspired by an image I saw on Pinterest but my amazing hubs just worked with what we had and created a perfect, unique shelving unit for my laundry room. I’ll explain the details of that more tomorrow.

This is my loving hubs hooking the dryer back up after building my cool shelves. He Loves Me! 😉

Here are the basic steps he took to make our specific shelves in which I wanted 4 baskets in a box from the floor all the way up to the bottom of the cabinets:

measure the space you have available to determine how many baskets can fit {height & depth}
measure the baskets using {length, width, height}
- our largest basket is 18" wide
- 26" long
- 12" deep
- Our largest basket is an 18x18 square and same depth
determine how much wood is needed
- 1 sheet of plywood for the side, floor bottom, front, & top
- 1x2s for the basket rails {horizontal to sides}
- 1x2s for the braces for the rails {parallel to side}
- 1x2 scraps for the extra space to make the shelves a bit deeper
cut boards
- we did 2 71.5" sides
- 25.5" deep
- top shelf 5.5" down from the top
- each is 14.72" apart giving us 16" between each basket
- 19.5" wide
using a nail gun and nailed the first side to the bottom of the shelf as a support {since the bottom of the cabinet would be part of the top of the shelf}
nailed the braces {parallel} and the rails {horizontal} to the first side
nailed the other 1/2 of the top to that side
build the box bottom and nailed to the side
nailed on the braces and rails to the 2nd side
attached the 2nd side to the existing "box"

Love this shelving!!! It makes sorting laundry so quick so I spend less time with laundry piled all over the house while trying to sort & fold. Here, I can just open the drier door, fold something quickly on the top of the drier, and then stick it in the appropriate basket.

We have labels on each basket to help with sorting and that basket returns to that spot after its emptied. {I plan to add these labels to the "Printables" post at the end of the month.

I do at least 1 load a night and the kids are able to do their "laundry chore" daily but often wait until the basket is about to overflow at the end of the week before putting it away. Our rule is, "If it's not hanging in your closet or in your dresser, its not an option to wear". This helps get stuff put away more regularly...or at least, if there's something they want to wear, they have to put Everything away before they can wear that item {after its put away}. lol

The other item I requested was a “Mud Room”. LOL This being the evil room my family enters through daily {or at least after I completely clean up the garage after all these projects} and guest enter occasionally, I need it to function as more than a laundry. I plan to share more about this aspect of the room later this week as well...and maybe we'll finish the bench before then. hehe

Now for the details of this shelf moving business. I decided to leave off the big heavy doors and go for open shelving. For me, open shelves MAKES me at least try to keep things organized and neat since everyone can see...everything. I also thought those hefty pieces of wood could better be used as shelving in the garage in the long run.