We all want our children to grow up and leave our homes knowing how to take care of their homes and themselves.

I have found that the best way to help my children learn new skills is by encouraging them to help me with the household chores.

Each week my children get to pick a chore that they would like to help me with. Because I have four children old enough to help me with chores I have made four different titles for my kids to choose from.

We have a:

Kitchen Helper – helps prepare dinner and set the table for meals each night.
Laundry Helper – helps load the washing machine, hang and fold clothes and sort underwear.
Dishwasher Helper – helps pack and unpack the dishwasher and clear the table after meals.
Cleaning Helper – helps vacuum, dust and generally tidy the house.

I don’t expect my kids to do all these jobs on their own. They are all still young so they need guidance with most tasks but as they practise all of these household tasks they will eventually be able to manage most jobs without my supervision.

Having the children helping me one on one also gives us plenty of time to have some special time together and with five children any chance for some one on one time with each of them is very important.

Children as young as two can start to help with chores. They like to help Mummy and Daddy put clothes in the washing machine, pass clothes to hang on the clothesline, they love to help in the kitchen and put a damp cloth in their hands and they become a crazy wiping machine.

If given the opportunity to help while they are young, children will grow up feeling like they are contributing to the household and once they are ready to leave home they will be well equipped to take care of themselves.

We all want our children to grow up and leave our homes knowing how to take care of their homes and themselves.

I have found that the best way to help my children learn new skills is by encouraging them to help me with the household chores.

Each week my children get to pick a chore that they would like to help me with. Because I have four children old enough to help me with chores I have made four different titles for my kids to choose from.

We have a:

Kitchen Helper – helps prepare dinner and set the table for meals each night.
Laundry Helper – helps load the washing machine, hang and fold clothes and sort underwear.
Dishwasher Helper – helps pack and unpack the dishwasher and clear the table after meals.
Cleaning Helper – helps vacuum, dust and generally tidy the house.

I don’t expect my kids to do all these jobs on their own. They are all still young so they need guidance with most tasks but as they practise all of these household tasks they will eventually be able to manage most jobs without my supervision.

Having the children helping me one on one also gives us plenty of time to have some special time together and with five children any chance for some one on one time with each of them is very important.

Children as young as two can start to help with chores. They like to help Mummy and Daddy put clothes in the washing machine, pass clothes to hang on the clothesline, they love to help in the kitchen and put a damp cloth in their hands and they become a crazy wiping machine.

If given the opportunity to help while they are young, children will grow up feeling like they are contributing to the household and once they are ready to leave home they will be well equipped to take care of themselves.

This meme is a very timely one for me because I have been thinking a lot lately about how I can make our home more homely and cosy for my family.

Last week I worked on my bathroom and this week I decided the kitchen needed my attention more than any other room in the house. I did a little research and discovered some very interesting Feng Shui tips for the kitchen and decided to start today by uncluttering one of my kitchen drawers (I didn’t have much time to declutter after spending so much time researching… hehehe). Imagine my surprise when I checked out the Home a Haven meme tonight to discover that we had to clean out a drawer!. I must have known something

So here are my before and after photos:

Not all that impressive I know, but hey, it’s a start! And by the end of the week I’m going to have a gorgeous clean, decluttered haven of a kitchen!

Go to Biblical Womanhood to join in this meme or to see more participants!

I’ve come to realise that if you want prosperity and abundance in your life you need to start in the kitchen.

During January (and I have decided to extend it into February as well) I am focusing on money. Saving money, bringing in more money and making our money work better for us.

So this week I am going to be working on a new habit. In an endeavour to reduce our electricity bill I am going to work on turning off appliances at the power point when they are not in use. After taking a look around our home I was amazed at how many electrical things we have plugged in. So I am going to work at turning everything off after I have finished with it.

Head over to The Lazy Organizers Blog to read about more Smart Habits Saturday participants!

During January (and I have decided to extend it into February as well) I am focusing on money. Saving money, bringing in more money and making our money work better for us.

So this week I am going to be working on a new habit. In an endeavour to reduce our electricity bill I am going to work on turning off appliances at the power point when they are not in use. After taking a look around our home I was amazed at how many electrical things we have plugged in. So I am going to work at turning everything off after I have finished with it.

Head over to The Lazy Organizers Blog to read about more Smart Habits Saturday participants!

During January (and I have decided to extend it into February as well) I am focusing on money. Saving money, bringing in more money and making our money work better for us.

So this week I am going to be working on a new habit. In an endeavour to reduce our electricity bill I am going to work on turning off appliances at the power point when they are not in use. After taking a look around our home I was amazed at how many electrical things we have plugged in. So I am going to work at turning everything off after I have finished with it.

Head over to The Lazy Organizers Blog to read about more Smart Habits Saturday participants!

I love, love, love baskets and from the moment we got our television unit almost a year ago I have known exactly what kind and size of baskets I wanted to put in the cupboards to organise all our junk. My only problem was that I couldn’t find the baskets I wanted. You see the doors on the unit are glass so you can see straight in there at all our bits and pieces and it is not a pretty sight!

See, I told you!. Anyway today while flicking through some brochures I found some baskets that I thought looked like they had potential. So I drag the kids to the discount store and there they were, I pulled out my tape measure and measured them up and guess what, they were the perfect size……. woo hooo!!!! Here they are:

So as you can tell baskets work for me, I’ll be back later with after photos

Visit Shannon’s Blog for more Works For Me Wednesday Tips!