Daily Jobs

This posts is part of my thoughts on how to teach the kids to work.

"Thus family work is a link to one another, a link to the Lord, a stepping-tone toward salvation that is always available.  This daily work of feeding, clothing, and sheltering each other has the power to transform us spiritually as we transform others physically" - SoF

The kids have certain daily jobs that they are expected to do before meals and bed.  It helps by giving us a "check time" to make sure we're cleaning up after ourselves.

I'm going to put this list somewhere in the kitchen so I can make sure I remember to use my "check points".  I tend to forget the lunch time check list.

Here's what is expected of them (an updated list since I first wrote it):

Checklists

Before Breakfast

1.Get dressed

2.Brush hair

3.Clean room

4.Make bed

5.Say prayers*

6.Read scriptures*
7.Take care of animals

8.Help with breakfast/set table

Before Lunch

1.Clean up study things**

2.Wash up

3.Help with lunch/set table

Before Dinner

1.Pick up play/study things**

2.Wash up

3.Help with dinner/set table

Before Bed

1.Quick house clean up***

2.Brush teeth

3.Put on PJs

4.Clean room

*I don't require this, but I told them that I put it on the list as a reminder since reminders help me establish good habits.


**To avoid arguments during pick-up time, I usually ask them to pick up 50 things each (regardless of who got them out - this way Bazinks' things get picked up - since he's the prime mess maker).  They know that if things are still not clean after the 50 item pick-up, then I'll assign more (I'll say, "Oh-oh, it's still not all picked up, everyone do 20 more",  or something like that).  They are getting to the point these days that they don't want to keep track of how many they've cleaned up so they just clean until it's done.

***For this, we start upstairs and check every room to see if anything needs to be put away as we work our way down.

Some more pictures from earlier this week:

"Mom, I'm like a real warrior!"

"Mom, get a picture of us when we're about to kill each other!"

"Get another picture for after we died!"

Smiling at his sister:

Cute chubby smile:

Update:

*I've given up on trying to do weekly jobs before breakfast.  I'm too hungry by 8am and we seem to be on "work mode" after cleaning up from breakfast so we just do them then.

*We're also now working on our quick house pick up after dinner - it also seems to work better when we're already on "work mode"