Clean and Flip the House

Do you ever get tired of going over the steps for cleaning a room again and again? My boys know what needs done and when they inspect the other person's work, they are ruthless, but when they are sent to clean alone, they always seem to "forget" something. Clean and flip charts from Trigger Memory Systems are a fun solution.

There are 3 different charts that I was given to review. First up was Zone Cleaning for Kids. This one worked great for us. It takes kids through the steps of cleaning the bathroom, the kitchen, and the family/living room step by step. It is laminated and they can check off the steps as they work through the zone. I have liked that it is a list nagging them instead of me. I can just ask if they've done all the steps instead of having to ask about each part of the job.

Ryan enjoys racing me to go through the steps in his zone faster than I can go through the steps in mine. It's been a great little tool for reminding them what to do and making them accountable.








The second book was Bedroom Cleaning for kids. This one is not laminated and the first time we tried it, it was a disaster. Step one is to go around the room and move everything into a big, messy pile into the middle of the room. (You then sort and put things away.) Well, the boys did step one with gusto, pulling everything out from under the beds and under the dresser and collecting a lot of little random junk. At this point the "big, messy pile" was completely overwhelming. Plus, they had found so many forgotten and lost "treasures" that they were totally distracted. I ended up helping/doing the cleaning that time. BUT once the room was relatively clean, the chart has been great, especially for Tyler. When the "big, messy pile" is only 10 things, it is easy to sort and deliver. We don't have the laundry baskets suggested in the chart, so he uses our little shopping cart to make his deliveries to other rooms. It makes cleaning his room into a game!





The third chart was Laundry for Kids. This was the only one I didn't test with my kids because my washing machine and dryer can be temperamental and the kids already have laundry jobs. (Jeanisha collects and sorts, the boys transfer it to the dryer and then the couch, I fold it and they put it away.) But, if you were at the stage of teaching a child to do the whole process themselves, this could be useful as a step by step instruction manual-- so you aren't always the one doing the reminding.


Overall, my kids seem to like the charts and "flipping" the house clean.