It’s hard to believe that spring is right in front of us already! When spring is approaching, we’re often motivated to do a big spring cleaning in our homes. Yet, when there are little ones around, our spring cleaning efforts can become really difficult. So how can we get our homes in springtime shape without losing our minds with littles underfoot? Let’s get them involved! Does that sound impossible? It’s actually pretty easy and fun. Our kids love to clean when they’re little. Now, they won’t clean perfectly or be able to do the big jobs. But there really are ways that you can do spring cleaning with your preschooler.
Everyone lives here
Cleaning should never be something that our kids see only the adults doing. Everyone who lives in that house has taken part in messing it up. And so everyone who lives in that house can do something to keep it in good shape. This is an important life lesson for our kids to learn young. It’s not mom’s job to do everything. It’s everyone’s job.
However, just like any other teaching, this teaching doesn’t have to be boring. It can be super fun.
Make it a game
Little kids can have so much fun when we make cleaning into a game. It can be as simple as setting a timer and seeing who can do more of a job in the assigned time. Or write jobs on little pieces of paper for your kids to draw out of a cup. When the papers are gone, we’re all done.
Try making it a scavenger hunt, where you find the next clue as you’re cleaning the first item, or you get the next clue once you finish cleaning the first item. Or make it a relay race, where there’s a clear list of things to do, and we race to finish our lists first.
If it’s time to do a major clean up of little items or toys, we can give our kids a color to focus on. Cleaning up is so much more fun when we have to find only the red items, then the yellow ones, and on and on until the floor is suddenly empty.
Play music, dance, and make your cleaning time fun!
Make it reasonable
We can’t tell our preschoolers to go outside and clean the windows. That’s just too big of a job. So let’s think of easy things our kids can do to really help out. Again, they won’t do a perfect job, but what can they work on that would still be a big help? For my kids, baseboards were the thing they loved to do, felt successful at, and really enjoyed. And even if the baseboards weren’t perfectly clean, they were much cleaner than they were before, and it kept my kids busy so I could do something else. And really, isn’t that a good goal too? What jobs can we give our kids that they will stick with for a few minutes so that we can do a bigger job without distraction?
Dusting is another great job for spring cleaning with your preschooler. Kids are also able to wipe things down. They can take a wet cloth and wipe down tables, walls, doors, and cabinets. Preschoolers also seem to enjoy cleaning table legs and chair legs. Again, even if they don’t do a perfect job, they will get some of those things done well enough to make a difference. And they will feel like they accomplished their part of caring for their home.
So, let’s come up with a few jobs that our kids can do without needing a lot of help from us so that we can get to the jobs that we need to do.
Set a time limit
It’s so much easier for kids when they know this job won’t go on forever. Let’s set short time limits for these jobs that we give our kids. These time limits help us parents too. If I know that I have five minutes to work on something, I’ll pick a job I can actually do in five minutes, and I’ll work hard to get it finished. Spring cleaning with your preschooler will help you to do spring cleaning much faster. We find that we have to use the time that we have, and so we make it work.
These shorter time limits mean that your spring cleaning might last for several days, or even a couple of weeks. But it’s worth it to spread it out so that you can do spring cleaning with your preschooler. For some seasons of life, spreading it out to a short time every day might be the only way it will happen.
And how good will it feel when we have deeply cleaned homes after the long winter season? It’s OK if it takes a couple of weeks to accomplish our spring cleaning goals. They will still be accomplished, and that will be a success.
Celebrate!
Let’s find a way to celebrate when we finish a job or a room or a goal. Maybe after a cleaning session, we can go to the playground or to the zoo. Or maybe we can have a special snack or treat. Perhaps they could watch a favorite movie while you keep getting your list accomplished. And maybe there could be a really big celebration when you finish your spring cleaning and celebrate everyone’s efforts toward caring for their home.
So, it’s totally possible to do spring cleaning with your preschooler. And it’s actually really important to teach them to care for their homes too. Spring cleaning together can be fun, relationship-building, and worthwhile.
Learn some signs about your home
In our free Signing Time Dictionary, we have an entire section with signs for our homes. Take a look at it here and see if you can learn some home signs with your kids as you work through some spring cleaning jobs.
And over at My Signing Time, in our classic Signing Time series, there’s a show called My House, where kids can learn a whole bunch of signs about a home.
So, as spring begins, learn a few signs to go along with spring cleaning with your preschooler!