Cleaning Games for Kids

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Sometimes I marvel at how my 6 and 3 year old are able to dismantle rooms. Things seem to get artistically spread out evenly around the room. A naked Barbie laying near the vent. A rubber duck out of water. A blue tinker toy stick in the middle of the room. It wasn’t there five minutes ago. How can I harvest some of their energy to actually attempt to keep up with their creations?

Everyone has their own cleaning systems and tolerance levels. Sometimes I tell my kids to clean up a room and they do it (eventually). But, here are a few ideas I use periodically to spice it up a bit:

Take Turns Game
Pick a room and take turns telling each other one thing to pick up or a task. The kids like choosing what you will have to do. Keep going until the room is clean.

Incentive
If they request to watch t.v. or a movie, give them a small job to do before they can watch. Sometimes I say “Okay, but why don’t you _______ while I’m getting the show started.”

Every Room Game
Tell them you want to play a game with them. Here is the game: go to each room in the house and you each pick something up in that room. Quality time and getting a few random things picked up — win/win.

Pay Them
Pay them coins to do extra jobs above and beyond what they are expected to do. Bonus: they learn about counting and managing money. They can save up to buy something.

Joke Around
“Where does your coat go? In the bathroom?”
“Where does this car belong? In the dishwasher?” It gets them smiling at the very least.

As the kids get older, our cleaning routines will evolve. There won’t be as many toys to step around. So, if I can, I’ll enjoy this stage while we’re in it.

~Carrie

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Comments

  6. Great ideas. Love to share with my daughter. Even great to use at grandma’s too.
    I enjoyed visiting you today.
    Have a great week,
    Sherry

  7. Great ideas. I like the idea of letting the child pick what the adult will put away. I’ve had luck recently with reorganizing the toys into plastic shoeboxes, and before he can get a new one out, he/we have to put the old one back. He never complains, though sometimes he thinks I should do it for him at first.

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