School Update: Home Economics or “Life Skills”

Though not typically considered a “school” subject, I think housekeeping skills are a very important part of my children’s education.

Some time ago, out of pure necessity, I started requiring the kids to help out in the kitchen and do other chores around the house.  I simply can’t do it all myself.  And of course, they need to learn to take responsibility and learn to do these kinds of things.

Over the years, I have added jobs a little bit at a time.  As they get used to one or two jobs, then we add more.

Kitchen chores

A few months ago I created a chart to hang on the fridge with the schedule of kitchen chores for each day, divided evenly among the oldest 4 kids.  I rotate the jobs so no one gets stuck doing the same job all the time and so that they all learn to do all the jobs.

Their rotating kitchen jobs include empting the dishwasher (divided into top, bottom and silverware), pouring water cups, pouring milk cups, setting the table, wiping the table, and sweeping the floor.

They are all expected to clear their own dishes plus 2 or 3 other things, make their beds, fold their own clothes, and brush their teeth.  We are still working on doing these things without having to be told…

 

 

Jobs for Hire

I also recently started using an app on my tablet computer that lets me award stars for extra work (such as dusting, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, taking out the trash, helping with meal prep, changing laundry loads, etc.)  They can trade in the stars for prizes or money.  This can help them learn to manage their money and make cost/benefit decisions.

House cleaning

We started a game called “10-minute pickup”.  I set a timer for 10 minutes and we race around the house trying to get all the toys picked up and put away in their proper places before the timer beeps.  Sometimes the reward is dessert.  Sometimes it is extra stars.  It is really amazing how much we can do in just 10 minutes.  And often, they have finished in only 5 or 6 minutes!

Since that game went over well, I decided to try another called “1 hour house cleaning”.  I divided up the vacuuming, mopping, dusting, and bathroom jobs among the 5 of us.  We are still in training on some of the jobs, but so far I am pleased with the results. Two weeks in a row we have gotten the vacuuming, mopping, bathrooms, and some dusting done in just one hour.  I plan to keep the same job assignments for a month or two to allow them to develop some proficiency at each job before moving on to learning new jobs.

Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping

Several years ago, I tried a system of planning meals and shopping for a month at a time.  I didn’t keep up with the shopping part for very long, but I did continue to plan meals for 3-5 weeks at a time.  I bought this magnetic white board with a calendar grid already printed on it and hung it on the fridge.  Then I made magnet labels with all my routine main meals and side dishes.  That allowed me to plan the menus without having to write or erase or try to remember all the options in my poor old brain.

After a while, I slipped back into planning meals only a week in advance – just before my weekly grocery shopping trip.  But adding a new baby complicates the shopping schedule , so I decided to see what I could do to reduce the amount of time I spend at the store.

I reworked my monthly menu schedule (it’s actually a six week rotation).  I assigned each day of the week a category of food:

• Sunday – soup with bread and fruit
• Monday – chicken
• Tuesday – Beans
• Wednesday – Pizza
• Thursday – Beef/Ground Turkey
• Friday – Breakfast (a long standing tradition!)
• Saturday – Fish

Then I assigned a main dish in each category for each week.  This gives me a working plan – and I try to stick to it for the most part, but it also gives me flexibility to switch things around to different days according to the needs of our schedule.  For instance, if I am going to be out most of the day, I can make sure I have something really simple on the schedule for that night.

I do soup on Sundays so that I can mix it up in the crockpot on Saturday night and let it cook while we are at church.  Then it is ready immediately when we get home from church – very helpful when we have Awana on Sunday nights which makes Sunday afternoons very short.

As much as possible, I try to make double batches of recipes and freeze some for use on a busy night or to take to people who need a meal.

I also made up a cheat sheet for each week’s recipes.  I know how to make them all without instructions but I needed a  listing of the ingredients and amounts so I don’t have to look up recipes in various books.  I taped the cheat sheets inside one of my kitchen cabinets.

My goal is one big shopping once every 4-6 weeks, then just get perishable things like dairy and produce on the other weeks.  Theoretically that would make most of my trips fairly quick (i.e. in less time than it takes Curtis to miss me).  It also allows me to sometimes ask Ronnie to go shopping on his way home from work.

The first time I went shopping for this menu cycle, I WAY over estimated how much I needed of some things, so it lasted longer than I anticipated.  I also added into the mix shopping at Costco, so I’m still tweaking my shopping schedule to try to accomplish my goals.

Well, that may be more than you really wanted to know… but that’s a glimpse into our life! :-)