Creating a Laundry System for Children)
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LOADS OF LAUNDRY IN ACTION (Creating a Laundry System for Children) CREATING THE LAUNDRY SYSTEM: 1. Decide which children you want involved in doing the family laundry. a. Children 9 years and up are old enough to be responsible for all parts of the laundry--sorting, spraying, washing, drying, folding and putting away. b. Children 6-8 can help you or older siblings with sorting, putting into washer, changing from washer to dryer, and folding. c. Children 3-5 can help you or older siblings with sorting, putting into washer, changing from washer to dryer, and simple folding. 2. Place a laundry hamper in each bedroom of the house, including master bedroom. 3. Assign each child a specific laundry hamper to be in charge of. Each day they will take the hamper to the laundry room and sort the clothes into the appropriate “batch baskets”. (If you have 4 bedrooms, each bedroom should have a hamper. The 4 oldest children would have an assigned hamper—or two children could have 2 hampers, etc.) MAKING THE LAUNDRY SCHEDULE: 1. Choose which batches of laundry you want the children to do each week. If there are 10 batches, divide them up so two batches are washed each day, Monday thru Friday. 2. Decide which batches you want each child to be responsible for. (Smaller children do better with easier batches. Older children can do harder batches, using stain spray, bleach, etc.) 3. Decide which day would work best for each child for their laundry day. (Remember to coordinate it with their music lessons, sports, scouts, church activities, etc. The laundry system works best if their laundry day is on a day without other activities.) 4. Make a written schedule with each child’s name, laundry day and laundry batch they are assigned to (Refer to “LOADS OF LAUNDRY SCHEDULE” handout). This schedule will hang in the laundry room for future reference. 5. Affix a tag with the child’s name and laundry day onto the appropriate “batch basket.” LOADS OF LAUNDRY IN ACTION: 1. Each day, the children assigned to the laundry hampers will empty and sort their hampers into the appropriate “batch baskets” in the laundry room. 2. The child assigned to that day will spray (if needed), wash and dry the clothes according to the laundry directions on the basket (Refer to “BATCH BASKET INSTRUCTION & NAME TAGS” handout), as well as on the “Loads of Laundry Schedule” (Refer to “LOADS OF LAUNDRY SCHEDULE” handout) hanging on the laundry room wall. 3. After the clothes are dry, the assigned child will fold or hang up clothing (whichever is applicable) and put them away in the designated areas. 4. To facilitate putting clothing away in appropriate drawers, draw simple outline pictures of clothing items (shirt, pants, pajamas, underwear and socks), laminate and affix onto the front of the appropriate drawer. (Another option is to cut pictures of the appropriate clothing out of magazines or advertisements, laminate and affix onto drawer front.) This not only helps the clean clothes get put into the right drawers, it also helps children put their clothes away in the correct drawers when cleaning their room. 5. If the laundry system is done correctly, everyone should enjoy having clean clothes every day, and the laundry room will stay clean and tidy. .