How We’re Handling Summer Chores
This summer, I borrowed a leaf from my dad’s parenting book and each week my girls have summer chores to complete.
My dad has always worked early so we’d come into the kitchen in the summer to find him long gone and a sheet of printer paper on the kitchen table with our summer chore list for the day written in black Sharpie marker in his distinctive handwriting.
The ones I remember best were cleaning all the window tracks in our house with a vacuum and toothbrush.
This summer, I’m doing my own spin on it by giving my girls each 2-3 chores to do each week and they can complete them whenever they’d like during the week as long as they’re done by Saturday night.
(I’ve also gone 21st century by using my Skylight calendar to list the chores for the girls – my Skylight code is JANSSENB40 for the Cal Max).
These one-off chores are on top of their normal day tasks like making their beds, tidying up their rooms, doing their laundry, putting away their breakfast dishes, and unloading the dishwasher.
When I mentioned these one-off summer chores on Instagram recently, I got a flood of questions asking if I’d share some ideas for the kinds of chores they’re doing.
Here’s a chore list of some of these summer chores (and once we started doing these, I started noticing ideas for these chores EVERYWHERE. Also, the girls can suggest chores if they see something they notice should be done – I want them to get used to paying attention to things that need to be done):
Ideas for Summer Chore List
- Clean out the fridge (this one is assigned to one of the girls pretty much every week to keep the fridge under control)
- Vacuum/wipe down the vents
- Wipe down the shoe shelves in Mom & Dad’s closet
- Dust fan blades in bedrooms
- Add museum putty to the bottom of picture frames and use the level to make sure they’re all straight and even
- Clear the hot tub filter
- Clean out under your bed
- Magic eraser walls in a specific (high traffic areas like hallways get SO MANY handprints and scuffs)
- Clean behind appliances on the countertop (our kitchen is old and doesn’t have a built-in microwave so it sits on the counter next to our air fryer)
- Power wash the recycle bin
- Clean out the backyard shed (this was assigned to two of the girls one week and they did it together)
- Wipe down the kitchen cupboards
- Wipe down the bar stools
- Clean and organize the gardening bench on our back deck
- Wipe down the ping pong table on the back deck
- Wipe down and organize the spice cupboard
- Clean up the art room
- Clean out locker in the mud room
- Wash the patio cushions (with this machine)
- Vacuum and organize the coat closet (including matching up mittens/gloves and donating strays)
- Dust Dad’s office shelves
- Organize the bookshelf in girls’ room
- Mop the kitchen (we have a house cleaner who comes every other week, but the kitchen floor gets pretty dirty in-between!)
- Wash the outdoor rugs in the washing machine and spread out to dry
- Power wash the deck
- Organize the linen closet
- Organize the game cupboard
- Vacuum under the couch cushions
If you have other suggestions for one-off summer chores, I’m all ears!
Love the ideas! And what motivates the girls to complete the chores? I.e. what if they forget/don‘t complete by the due date? Thanks 🙂
If they don’t complete their chores, they lose their family privileges (family movie night, playing with friends, etc).
Curious how you would not have the child “show up” to movie night with the rest of the family and reinforce that rule if you know what I mean.
They’d just go to bed in their room.
Vacuum crumbs out of kitchen drawers, clean under radiators, clean inside medicine cabinet, take down curtains and wash,
I LOVE this idea!! Implementing it this summer (and laughing about the difference in climate — in San Diego there’s no coat closet and definitely no mittens lol). Thank you for sharing!
I love these ideas but honestly having one of my 3 boys (7/9/10) “organize” anything would make more work for me 😂 but I’m not adverse to doing it together so they learn and the job still gets done. They do better with chores that involve using objects, like wiping down cabinet doors, vacuuming, or sorting objects into piles. Jobs also have to be about 15 min or less or they lose interest and have a hard time completing.