For each chore the kids do they get to earn a nickle.  They can enlist their siblings to help.  At the end of the week we tally the “stars” and give the kid’s the money they’ve earned.  They love knowing they completed a task!  And I love how they have started counting by 5s without “realizing” it!  At the end of the week we wipe off the list and we start over again.

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My kids are 5, 4 & 2.5.  Some of the chores they help with are:

• Emptying the dishwasher
• Mop the kitchen
• Vaccuum
• Sort the Laundry
• Wipe the baby’s highchair & walker
• Clean out the car
• Wipe the table
• Organize the toys
• Wipe baseboards
• Wash the windows
• Pick up the playroom
• Clear off tables

We have been doing this “chore system” for nearly two weeks and it seems to be working great with us!  I hope we are instilling the same financial foundation in our kids that my parents helped provide for me!

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What tips can you share from your own financial successes and failures?

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Manilla. The opinions and text are all mine. Contest runs July 14-31, 2011. Winner must be signed up with Manilla to win. A random winner will be selected by August 5, 2011. Official Contest Rules

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Steps to Sock Mop with Your Preschoolers:

1. Remove the table from the room – not an easy feat for an 8 month pregnant Quirky Momma, but we managed.
2. Sweep the floors… then sweep them again.
3. Fill a shallow pan with soapy water
4. Put on some of Daddy’s socks
5. …and have fun stomping and sliding!

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My oldest daughter was great at spot scrubbing the floor with her feet.  My son preferred traditional mopping, he’s such a “tool” and gadget boy!  While my youngest liked splashing and making a mess.

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Want to get your own cleaning supplies?  Head over to Mom Loop and join in the cleaning fun!  Thanks Scrubbing Bubbles for providing samples for the Quirky Home to try and giving some to one of our readers to enjoy.

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Thanks to Brandie from Rudy Rukus for joining in our cleaning fun and to Jackie, from Pocketful of Posies for sharing her Sock Mopping Post!  Love them!

Ticia is mommy to three preschoolers and she explains how she makes doing chores easy for her youngsters by using plastic dishes and even explains her method of getting groceries unloaded (which at my house can be an all-afternoon event).  I hope you can learn from her and her post, Chores and Kids posted at Adventures in Mommydom.

Sherry shared her chore list for us!  Thanks.  It is nice to see what realistic expectations of our kids chores should look like, when we can start expecting more out of our preschoolers.  You can read her post Chores for my Boys and her other parenting tips at City Chic on a Farm

Simone has has a brilliant idea!  Her family has a “tidy song” (which happens to be the Macarena, but you can pick another song), whenever momma turns it on the kids rush off to clean!  Sounds impressive and fun!  She presents her Tidy Up Song on her blog at Greatfun4kids.

Melissa makes a great challenge, can we stop whatever we are doing once every hour and spend a min or two tidying?  If we will – it’ll be obvious!  I’m amazed at what a minuet can do.  She discusses her housekeeping theories in:  No Time For Housework posted at Your Fun Family.

Brandie uses  a bin system to keep her kids clothes and toys organized!  I am impressed.  We use a bin system at our house too, and it looks nothing like the clean structure found in Brandies closet.  She shares her concept in Tips to Get Kids Involved In Cleaning posted at Rudy Family Rukus.

And Katherine from Just Because… Makes teams in her family and do chores together while they sing.

Did you contribute? Feel free to wear our “I’ve been featured” button.

Many thanks to those who participated in the last blog carnival!  And thanks to Sugar Pond for providing the picture!

Our Current Carnival is about Thanksgiving.

We’d love to hear of ways that you foster an attitude of thanksgiving in your kids!

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Mopping, wiping, vacuuming and learning:

• I use mopping to work on memory skills. Did you already mop here? How can you tell? With our table top we can easily practice deductive reasoning. The area without crumbs and greasy hand prints was wiped down, the other areas still need attention.
• With mopping, short-term memory is more important. Often the floor looks about the same. So we work on developing our short-term memorywhile mopping.  Where have we mopped? Where do we need to mop next? My kids currently are obsessed with Dora.  And if you know much about Dora, you know the adventures have three parts, so we try to make mopping into an adventure. “Go under the table, around the chairs, towards the sink”.
• We also discuss patterns and progression by starting on one side of the room and working towards the other so we can know where we mopped.

Do you have any tips on how to include kids into doing chores? Have you blogged about chores in your household? I’d love to read about your kids successes and hear what chores they participate do in your home. Submit your story to our blog carnival. I’ll feature my favorites sometime next week!

Thanks to these flickr families for contributing photos!

Cooking with your toddlers:

• Sequencing steps. It is important for kids to follow specific steps in a process. Example: First, mix eggs, butter and sugar. Then add the flour. Finally, spoon the cookies onto the cookie sheet. This is a great time to discuss consequences and make predictions. If we skip the flour step, can we still make cookies?
• Exposure to fractions. My preschoolers have learned that fractions are a part of a greater whole by measuring the full amount and then subtracting parts to put in the recipe. Example: While making bread we use six cups of flour, but we add them one at a time to the dough. It takes an extra step to demonstrate fractions as I found that they “get it” more if we start from the whole and work backwards. This typically means I have to measure twice, but the experience is worth it!
• Learn and practice sensory vocabulary with terms used to describe textures, tastes and physical motions. Examples: Is it soft? hard? wet? clumpy? slimy? etc. Does this taste salty? sweet? bitter? sour? etc. Can you stir, pour, knead, mash, break, etc.
• Encourage the kids to try new foods. Kids Health made the observation that kids are more likely to try a new food if they have ownership of it, if they feel invested in it as the “chef” or the person who made the meal. Having your children cook with you provides opportunities to discuss wise food choices.
• Discuss the importance of refrigeration and sanitation while cooking.

Do you have any tips on how to include kids into doing chores? Have you blogged about chores in your household? I’d love to read about your kids successes and hear what chores they participate do in your home. Submit your story to our blog carnival. I’ll feature my favorites sometime next week!

Thanks Eyeliam for sharing the photo.

Here are some ways we have used washing the dishes as a “teachable” moment with our kids:

• Have discussions of bigger and smaller – Which plate is bigger? Can you find the smallest spoon? Which stack of cups is the tallest?
• Practice sorting items that have similarities into groups. Discuss exceptions. Example: We keep all of our forks in one location, except for our large serving forks.
• Explore Space, Child Care Aware, advises kids to “see and explore how shapes and things fit together”. For us, this means stacking plates and bowls in the most compact way so they can “fit” into the cupboards and spooning our spoons so they fit into the silverware tray.
• Dish washing is a great way to incorporate math vocabulary into your day: Are the cups on the top or the bottom? What dish is the lightest? The heaviest? Is this dish wetter or drier than “that” one? Can you find the dish that can hold the most? How many circles can you find? Squares? Cubes? Cylinders? Rectangles?
• Practice basic counting and arithmetic. How many plates are in the dishwasher? Put some away and re-count. What happened to the amount of dishes in the dishwasher when we put some away? I was amazed that my three year old has begun to understand the concept of subtraction from playing with dishes.
• Responsibility and safety. This is probably one of the most important lessons kids can learn while doing the dishes. We talk about how knives are dangerous and how to call mom (me) when we break a dish so I can supervise the clean up. We also discuss how when we make a mess (spill water from a dish that got flipped, or spill the silverware during “putting it away”) we need to clean it up.

Do you have any tips on how to include kids into doing chores? Have you blogged about chores in your household? I’d love to read about your kids successes and hear what chores they participate do in your home. Submit your story to our blog carnival. I’ll feature my favorites sometime next week!

Big thanks to these families for sharing their photos

Sorting laundry and math skills:

• Counting, learning one-to-one correspondence, or learning that “1″ means 1 item.   Kids Love to Know explains number correspondence as, “how to point to only one object when they are counting and to stop counting when all objects have been touched.”  Laundry piles are a great way to physically experience numbers and quantity while contributing to the family!
• Recognizing and creating sets.  We are working on folding our clothes together in bundles (see tip post).  My kids are learning which colors and clothes “clash” and create sets of top, bottom and accessories, with their clothes.
• Differentiation and similarities comparisons.  Example: Daddy has a shirt, Z has a shirt.  Daddy’s shirt is bigger but both are shirts and both are  folded the same way.  Or,  we may have a contest and my daughter’s pile is bigger than my son’s (or smaller than).  Recognizing quantities is a pre-math requirement.
• Matching socks.  We can play the make-a-match card game… or we can play make-a-match with socks!  I prefer the second.  I detest socks and love the fact that my kids match them together.  Now we are working on their motor skills.  Hopefully, they will begin folding them soon!

Do you have any tips on how to include kids into doing chores?  Have you blogged about chores in your household?  I’d love to read about your kids successes and hear what chores they participate do in your home.  Submit your story to our blog carnival.  I’ll feature my favorites sometime next week!

Bathrooms:

• Tiled walls, bath tubs, showers
• Shower Door
• Vanity and Sink
• Mirrors and Chrome fixtures
• Floors cleaned and mopped
• Toilets cleaned and sanitized
• Window sills, ledges and blinds dusted
• Cobweb removal
• Doors and Door frames/jams handwiped
• Cabinet facing wiped

Kitchen:

• Counter tops cleaned and sanitized
• Outside of range hood cleaned
• Top and front of range cleaned
• Drip pans and glass surfaces wiped
• Sinks cleaned and chrome shined
• All appliances wiped
• Floors vacuumed and mopped
• Microwave cleaned inside and out
• Cabinet doors wiped
• Inside of cabinets wiped and organized
• Inside of fridge wiped and organized
• Wipe down all kitchen furniture
• Wipe out and sanitize kitchen trash can
• Doors, door frames and jams hand wiped

Sleeping and Living Areas:

• All flat surfaces wiped
• All hard surface furniture dusted
• Doors, door frames and jams hand wiped
• Picture frames dusted
• Ceiling fans and light fixtures dusted
• Window sills, ledges, blinds dusted.
• Windows washed
• Wood floors damp mopped
• Carpeted floors steam cleaned
• Under furniture vaccuumed
• Couches and chair (including under cushions) vacuumed
• Baseboards wiped
• Cobwebs removed
• Vent openings vacuumed

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Here are some of the chores in my chores jar:

• Wipe down kitchen cabinets
• Organize the pantry
• Under sinks
• Closets
• Filing Paperwork
• Garage or mud room
• Vacuum mattresses and couches
• Wash windows

I hope this tip can help you clean up your easy-to-forget regions of your home.