With six children and two adults in the house, we produce a lot of laundry. As the kids get older, we have taught them how to do their own laundry. At about 8-10 years old (depending on their maturity) they are taught how to sort, wash, fold, and put away their own laundry, plus some stain removal methods.
We have a weekly rotation that we try to follow. Monday is adult plus baby day, Tuesday is our two 14 year old boys’ day, Wednesday is our oldest teenager boy’s day, Thursday is our two girls’ day, and Friday is catch-up day (this day is when I wash towels, wash cloths, sheets, and anything else that needs to be washed). They must wash all their clothes and their sheets on their day.
If the kids or I miss our day we have to do our laundry on “catch up day” or on the weekend. If they have something special they need washed, they can throw it in with another load through the week.
Each group of people who do their laundry together also share hampers. The girls have 2 hampers, one for lights, one for colors to help them with sorting.
The kids are taught to put their clothes away in an orderly way. The dressers, chests of drawers, closets, and bathrooms are all to be kept neat and sorted. Their drawers are sorted by clothing category, such as underclothes in the top drawer, t shirts in the second drawer, shorts and sweats in the next and socks in the bottom drawer.
Their closets are also sorted by category with all the hangers going the same way and all their clothes facing the same way; dresses all together, blouses/ shirts together, pants together, etc. with their shoes neatly on the floor below their clothes.
I know this sounds picky, but they are learning to keep things neat and organized at a young age and hopefully these lessons will last a lifetime. Plus, there is the added bonus of being able to get ready to go somewhere quickly, without having to search the house for lost items.
These methods work well for our family, what works for yours?
