30 Day House Cleaning Challenge – Day 1

My cozy little home is in dire need of Spring cleaning so I am excited to be participating in Money Saving Mom’s 30 Day House Cleaning Challenge. Day 1’s Project is:

Surface Clean Your Living Room & Kitchen

With three children under the age of five, there’s a lot of surface cleaning to be done at our house! I figure I have two options.

1)Turn on the ole’ TV and let the littles zone out to Dora the Explorer while I zoom as quickly as I can through picking up the stray army of toys, mail, and other belongings.

or

2) Enlist my tiny culprits into helping clean up the mess they made sans Dora the Explorer.

With great sadness we bid adieu to Dora and began our own cleaning adventure. I introduced them to a fun a little game involving tossing what doesn’t belong on the floor into baskets. One basket for mommy/daddy items, one basket for toys, and one grocery bag for garbage. In my head I envisioned myself a chipper Mary Poppins singing about the element of fun in every job that must be done. However, I was met with blank stares except for my star player – the 18 month old. He LOVED tossing items into the baskets. He was a good little example of how cleaning a room can be fun!

After watching their little brother have fun for a few minutes, the other two joined in. One crawled underneath their IKEA play table and tossed out what was underneath. The other shot the toys/garbage/items into mostly correct baskets. Once all items were cleared from the floor, we whipped out the vacuum. Next, we wiped down the table. My 18 month old thought this was great fun as well.

With the learning area cleared and cleaned, we were able to bring back the items that needed to be there. We placed all the lesson materials for the next day in our Ikea spice racks – which work perfectly for us in this space. The spice racks were only $3.99 each, too!

 Now we are all set up for a fun devotional tomorrow morning. The Spring cleaning took much longer than anticipated, but I am hoping that it helped my children learn to work together and take responsibility for their belongings a little more. I am still on the lookout for the magical key to how clean rooms with children so let me know if you have any great tips!

What are your favorite ways to clean with your children?

How do you motivate your children to clean?