Spring is here. With warmer weather on the way, and some extra time on your hands, now is the perfect time to give your house a spring clean.
And with the kids home from school, why not get the whole family working together to make your home cleaner?
Not only is it more pleasant to live in a clean house, it can also be healthier. A good deep cleaning can improve your home’s air quality.
Over the winter, your windows are shut, and there’s not a lot of air movement in your home. Because of that, dust accumulates. And if you have pets, their hair and dander gets everywhere, even if you try to keep a clean home.
If any of your family has spring allergies, adding winter dust and pet dander to that mix can make you sneeze even more. By giving your home a fresh start, you can begin spring on a healthier note.
Here are some family-friendly ideas to get your house ready for the rest of the year. It’s easy to get the kids involved in simple, age-appropriate ways.
Make a list
Before you start, make a list of everything that needs to get done. If you’re stuck on ideas, you can also find a checklist online and customize it to your needs.
Once you’ve got that to-do list though, seeing everything that needs completing might be intimidating. There’s so much to get done!
If deep cleaning isn’t your favorite thing, we get it. It can be hard to coordinate the whole family into helping you scrub the house from top to bottom.
Consider hiring someone to help you out. Maid to Clean offers a range of services, from one-time deep cleanings, to regularly-scheduled cleans. As cleaning experts, we’ll have your home deep cleaned in a day.
Once the initial work is done, you can break down what’s left on your checklist into manageable chunks. Each day, you can make it your goal to get one room of the house done, or check five items off of your list.
You definitely don’t have to get everything done in one day, and this makes things a lot more manageable for everyone.
Checklists can also help kids stay organized and motivated. Make a kid-friendly list and hang it on the refrigerator. Have your kids check off each completed task so that they have a better sense of what they’ve accomplished.
Let everyone pick what they would like to do
Cleaning can be boring to kids, who would rather be talking to their friends, playing video games, or having fun in other ways. And it can make kids feel frustrated and bored if they’re assigned a task they are not interested in.
Offering some choice is a good compromise. Let older kids pick which tasks they would like to do from a bigger list. Or if you’re going room by room, let them decide which room they’d like to tackle next. It can help keep your kids stay interested in their spring cleaning tasks.
You can also assign tasks to your kids based on what they usually do around the house. For instance, if your daughter always dusts, she’ll already be familiar with the task.
As well, allow kids to be in charge of their own rooms. Obviously, you will have to help more the younger your kids are – a teenager can work by themselves to clean up their room, while an elementary schooler will need more help.
Turn up the music
Putting on upbeat music can make cleaning more fun for everyone. Put songs on that everyone can sing along to.
As a fun pre-cleaning activity, sit down with your family and make a cleaning playlist. This allows everyone to have a say – especially important if your kids have different tastes in music.
Any task can be made more fun with music, whether it’s shaking out the toaster to Katy Perry, or cleaning out drawers to Disney classics.
Turn tasks into games
Many tasks can easily be turned into games. Is your kids’ playroom a mess of toys? Have a race to see how quickly your kids can get their toys into the appropriate place.
Depending on the age of your child, you can also have them help in a variety of ways that help them think.
Do you have a child who is learning about time and dates? Turn cleaning out your pantry and fridge into a game, and have your child identify food expiration dates.
Kids who are learning the alphabet can help you organize your spices in alphabetical order. While this may be more hands-on on your part, this can also be a good opportunity to teach your kids more about spices and cooking.
Have your kids help out with the pets
If your kids are already involved in taking care of your family pets, it makes sense to give them tasks related to the animals.
One quick, easy spring cleaning task that you can have your child do is decluttering your pets’ items. Dogs and cats always seem to end up with too many toys, don’t they? Have them take a few minutes to go through your pet’s toys and throw out anything that your pet doesn’t play with anymore, or that is too damaged to safely play with.
Another idea is giving food and water bowls a good clean, and disinfecting hard toys. Try using equal parts warm water and white vinegar. Let the bowls or toys sit for half an hour, scrub them with a brush, and rinse.
Vinegar is one of our favorite cleaning products, and this is a natural and non-toxic way to disinfect your dog’s belongings and make everything smell fresh.
Reward everyone afterward
At the end of a day of cleaning, be sure to let your kids know they did a great job, and do something fun with them as a reward. Don’t forget to reward yourself too. Family movie night or having a special dessert after dinner is always fun and don’t break the bank.
Best of luck with your spring cleaning!