chores in the morning before school, why do you do them then? We have never done ours in the morning or on a daily basis, more of as need to basis, but the Chore Chart Thread got me thinking, again. LOL So, why do you and/or your children do them chores in the morning?
I was kind of wondering the same thing. Some chores don't really need to be done until later (loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, etc) so how do those things fit in to the schedule?
For me it is just personal preference. I have a very hard time focusing if I know there is a mess somewhere. If the big things are done, than I can focus more when we sit down to do our school
It's a puzzlement to me as well. lol. I do the evenin tidying so the house is clean in the morning when we get up, then again slightly before nap, and then in the evening.
This is what I do, too. But, so many seem to do chores in the morning, even in a lot of books I read, that I thought there must be something to it.
If we dont get it done in the AM then it usually doesn't get done. Our school day routine looks something like this: We get up, have breakfast and then get to the chores. Everyone gets dressed, makes their bed and straightens up their room (me included). My older daughter will empty the dishwasher and put the breakfast dishes in it. My younger daughter gets all the laundry and throws it in a basket for me to take down and she also feeds the dogs/cats. I get two loads of laundry put up (we have two washers and two dryers) and figure out what we will have for dinner. I do a lot of crock pot meals so I need to get that started early. If I need to run to the bank or a store we do it at that point before lunch. Before lunch my oldest daughter will transfer laundry from washers to dryers. We have lunch and then start our school work. Once we are done with school work we take a break until its time to getting dinner ready. After dinner we all fold the laundry as we sit together in the livingroom. Each kid takes their clothes and puts them away. If I do not have a schedule my house gets totally out of hand. We have a very small house with six people and everyone needs to help out. We are in the packing stage because we are moving soon and my entire house is in disarray at the moment. Our routine does not go by the clock though. I dont schedule anything by the clock unless its a coop class or outside appt. I have four kids but I only homeschool my two youngest. My oldest two sons are 18 and 22. My 18 yr old is autistic and goes to a private school for kids with autism. He is a dual college/high school student. He finished 12th grade in June, but will continue with his school until he is 21. My oldest son is a full time college student and works so he is not normally home during the day. Their chores include keeping up on their own rooms, taking out the garbage and yard work.
This is what our day looks like. If I need to go to the store I usually go alone because my dd's are teens and while I am running errands they do their schoolwork. If we need to go to the library or something where both dd's need to go with me we do it in the morning time. Wake up, make bed then. I shower at 6am and then eat. DD's eat breakfast, load/unload the dishes (each girls has a day). After breakfast ,get dressed/shower ( while one is showering the other is on the computer for their free time). I vacuum or dust during this time also (every other day). Throw in some laundry (we each have a day that we do our own laundry), fold when dryer dings. Hang stuff immediately. Start schoolwork at 9-9:30 At lunchtime (11:45-12:45) we load dishes/ wash pots by hand (if we used them), Schoolwork until 2-2:30 Get dinner started at 4:30-5pm, dd's help prep or cook, set tables, clear tables Do dishes after dinner, turn dishwasher on while we... Walk dog at 7:30 Bed at 8:30-9pm
We don't do all of our chores in the morning. We do do some of them: Make Beds Get dressed/wash face/brush teeth Start Laundry Clean their bathroom (each day one of them is resp to make sure that the tooth brushes, toothpaste, etc are put away, towels are hung, shower curtain closed, sink washed out....and on my son's day he wipes down the rims of the toilet). The rest are usually AFTER school - or even during the school day as needed (i.e. folding and putting away Laundry)
My boys have morning chores for several reasons. 1) Morning is the most logical time (for me) to feed the animals, clean up after them, wash the table that we'll be sitting at for school. 2) Because it gives them a chance to use up some of that energy they just got from having breakfast and a good nights sleep. 3) It gives me time to tend to the baby and get things ready for their day. My boys also have afternoon and evening chores. I split them up so that I don't have to fuss about them all getting done at once.
I agree with Birbitt it is a way to use up some energy. Make it a routine that they will stick with. And my animals are generally out of water and hungry. I don't think they would like having to wait lol. Also my laundry generally takes all day I am using a clothesline on the west side of the house. So it mostly has afternoon sun. So get it started while I vacuum floors and the kids do their chores. The house feels cleaner and we are ready to proceed with some free time before lunch. After lunch we hit the books before dinner. But our schedule is flexible and some days we leave chores out of it for the kids. Like if they have had a rough day the day before. They are only little after all and responsibility will bog them down in life soon enough.
We start later in the morning as well, so by the time they eat, wash faces, brush teeth,and do am chores I am done feeding the baby, setting up lessons and eating myself. Then we do school work till lunch, eat and finish any work not done. Then they have their afternoon task of cleaning their room, a 30 min to 1hr rest time, then evening play, supper, nightly chores, bath and bed!
We do chores when they need done. Sometimes that is in the morning, sometimes the afternoon and sometimes the evening. It is what works for us.
What a great reason to do chores in the morning! It makes me reconsider what we do! lol. But dh "expects" (and I say this loosly) the house to be clean and tidy when he gets home from work. He really likes it that way so we can spend time together and not have to clean. :/ I think we need a new morning routine anyway. Ours is too lax and I think the kids get bored.
Meg, that's why we do cleanup 3 times a day. So when DH gets home it's all clean for him and we can relax. The boys do their stuff at morning, noon, night, just divided up over the time.
We do morning chores, but they are simple. The girls need to get up, get dressed, make their beds and brush their hair. My oldest needs to empty the dishwasher. My youngest may have another job, maybe not...just depends what needs to be done. It looks like a lot of ladies do laundry daily. I do ours once a week...just works better for everyone. So on Mondays the girls help to gather and sort laundry. Then it is in process all day. Our laundry room is just off the kitchen where we school with only a curtain separating the two. It bothered me to hear the washer every day of the week.
It would be nice to have a laundry room so close by! Let me sit awhile and daydream about that............ Our laundry room is downstairs. Thats two flights of stairs (one way!). Unfortunatly we need to get our clothes sorted since for about a month i've been behind and we have been getting clothes straight from the clean laundry basket. :/ My bad, I guess. But I do laundry every other day, since I hate the hassle of going up and down the stairs all the time. Plus...when it's so far away I tend to forget it. :/
Here is my morning routine I try to get most of it done before school-though this last week has been CRAZY and my routine has fell by the wayside And the house is messy to prove it! And then here is my nightly routine-it's much more likely to not get done than the morning routine. But it def makes the morn easier if it gets done.... I make the kids do things to-but it varies on how much needs to be done as to what they do. They help unload the dishwasher, wipe the tables down, wipe the walls.
We tidy up in the evening, but there are morning chores at our house. Unload dishwasher from the night before and load morning dishes. Laundry Feed and water animals Clean animal cages dog poop duty showers beds and anything else that is needs to be done. I like to start and finish my day with a clean house. Schooling is hard enough some days without having a messy house on top of it. A messy house makes me feel yucky and unmotivated. A clean tidy house makes me feel as if I can do anything. Weird huh?
