Fun Chores for Kids of all ages

There are so many fun chores that kids of all ages can complete. My own kids are 2 and 4 and they participate in many of the chores at home.

For instance, my 2 year old LOVES to throw all of the laundry into the machine. And while it doesn't necessarily help me since I have to be down there when he is doing it, I am paving the way for him to be the Laundry person in the home.

I was just talking to an extremely efficient Jewish woman in Baltimore who has 5 kids and one on the way, and she mentioned how her son who is 10 does all of the family's laundry. Every day when he comes home from school, he throws in the loads, sometimes prompted by the mother who will say, "Can you run a load of the girls clothes that do NOT go in the dryer?" He collects the hampers from all of the rooms (save a step with this laundry method) and then when they are all dry, brings them up to the kids room and dumps the clean clothes on the bed. The other kids are responsible for putting the clothes away. The son loves his job and doesn't miss a beat!

Work with your kids and help them discover what they love to do. And why not, if it makes it easier and instills in your children a sense of empowerment rather than coercion. Coercion only works while your children are smaller than you. You want to aim for connection. But I don't want to get into philosophies on child rearing as I know everyone has a different opinion, even on a topic such as chores!

Most young kids love to clean windows. Get them their own caddy with a spray bottle and a few towels for them to wipe down the windows.

Kids also love to wash the floor! You can purchase a special kids mop at any montessori store. The buckets are heavier to prevent tipping, with a wringer for them to wring out their mop. My kids actually wash the floor of their classroom so I thought, why not have them do it at home?

After all, that is the whole point! The kids love to help anyway, don't see the fun chores as nagging chores, and it is great chinuch for them. As they get older, their help is essential, so start them young while they appreciate fun chores.

Small children can use a carpet sweeper, or a crumb sweeper for tabletops. My kids fight over who is going to use the fun crumb sweeper!

In the Montessori classroom where my children are in school, there is a shoe shine station as well as a silver polishing station. You can set up your own shoe shine station and silver polishing station with simple silver polishing gloves and cloths. They don't have to use the toxic liquid silver cleansers, there are plenty of ways around that so they can still do fun chores.

Do you have a great story about how you encourage your children to participate in household chores? Share it!

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Helping at Home  Not rated yet
Hi Rivka,
My name is Pam and I live in Israel, on a moshav, with my husband and six children. Their ages range from 15 to 8. I work full time out of the ...

Chores  Not rated yet
I think it’s great to engage kids in chores they prefer and enjoy, but I think it’s important that they have others, as well. Picking up after themselves ...