Lately I have found myself better able (after the business of summer and harvest) to keep up with the housework, cooking and such but I was still noticing a bunch of different details that needed attended too. Light fixtures were dirty, the were some cobwebs up in the corners, cupboards that needed to be cleaned out. walls needed to be washed and stuff of that nature.
I decided it would be pretty nice to get it all cleaned up by Thanksgiving as we will be having company over and that just seemed like a nice deadline. I came up with that thought on Saturday morning and thought it might be nice to "attack" one room and a time and get it really clean.
What would be the best way to get the kids involved and interested?......
I decided to write out all the rooms (we have 13) and then under each one I wrote a list of things that needed to be done in the room. Now which room to do first?
That is when I got my good idea. Beside each room I wrote an estimated time and then I cut apart all the rooms and stuck the papers in a basket and announced that we would take turns drawing which room we would do, we would all work hard and fast at it and try to get it done before the timer beeped (I set the timer for the estimated time).
Megan drew first and the Laundry room was the first trial of my idea. It went pretty well and we were done cleaning it quite quickly (I think I allotted 20 minutes for that one).
In between each cleaning (which last from 10-40 minutes) we take a break of at least 1/2 hour. We did 4 rooms on Saturday, took a break on Sunday and we were planning on doing 3 rooms a day today, tomorrow and Wednesday but got the hardest one this afternoon (the kitchen) and then we played a game as a family this evening (so no time for cleaning) so we only did two rooms today. We have mostly easy ones left now so tomorrow we will try to do 4 rooms again.
This method isn't all fun and games but it is going pretty smoothly and our house it getting a pretty good deep cleaning so I am feeling pretty happy about it!
How do you get your cleaning done for the holidays?
I decided it would be pretty nice to get it all cleaned up by Thanksgiving as we will be having company over and that just seemed like a nice deadline. I came up with that thought on Saturday morning and thought it might be nice to "attack" one room and a time and get it really clean.
What would be the best way to get the kids involved and interested?......
I decided to write out all the rooms (we have 13) and then under each one I wrote a list of things that needed to be done in the room. Now which room to do first?
That is when I got my good idea. Beside each room I wrote an estimated time and then I cut apart all the rooms and stuck the papers in a basket and announced that we would take turns drawing which room we would do, we would all work hard and fast at it and try to get it done before the timer beeped (I set the timer for the estimated time).
Megan drew first and the Laundry room was the first trial of my idea. It went pretty well and we were done cleaning it quite quickly (I think I allotted 20 minutes for that one).
In between each cleaning (which last from 10-40 minutes) we take a break of at least 1/2 hour. We did 4 rooms on Saturday, took a break on Sunday and we were planning on doing 3 rooms a day today, tomorrow and Wednesday but got the hardest one this afternoon (the kitchen) and then we played a game as a family this evening (so no time for cleaning) so we only did two rooms today. We have mostly easy ones left now so tomorrow we will try to do 4 rooms again.
This method isn't all fun and games but it is going pretty smoothly and our house it getting a pretty good deep cleaning so I am feeling pretty happy about it!
How do you get your cleaning done for the holidays?
1 comment:
This is such a good idea. My kids love trying to get things done before the kitchen timer goes off. I am definitely trying your method. Thanks for your posts. This is the first time I have commented but I look forward to reading your posts everyday :)
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