Making Chores Fun - Go Shopping
Splitting up all chores in to parts and giving everyone a specific role when doing the chores works well for us as a family. This way Top Ender and Big Boy both get to learn how to do a chore without being overwhelmed with having too much to do and it can be made age appropriate. Just liking mowing the lawn, if you get into a routine of sharing the work it helps speed things up and encourages co-operation from everyone! When we go shopping we work off a shopping list that I create. I have a basics shopping list of things that we need every week (and month) and will check what we need as I go along creating the list. I check out the prices on the website My Supermarket and go through the products that we use most regularly to see if they are on special offer. Then the fun part starts.
When just Big Boy and I go shopping I will create a list for him, complete with drawings (as he can't read yet) for him to see what we need and for him to be in charge of putting into the trolley. I used to do this for Top Ender too and I think that like Flash cards the drawings help associate that all objects have a written representation and help encourage reading!
Giving children something to focus on whilst shopping really helps them to find the chore more fun and normally means that you don't spend the time rushing round the supermarket throwing in various items that your child has asked for and you have agreed to get to keep the peace!
If everyone is going shopping we normally change what we are doing slightly and work from just one list. Sometimes it will be Top Ender carries the list and calls out what we need from the list with Big Boy finding the item and putting it into the trolley with the help of Daddy and I or we might split into teams to race to do the shopping.
Racing to do the shopping is great fun because you choose items that are close together in the supermarket and give one or two items to each team to get. One team has to take the trolley with them and the other team has to rush off and return to the trolley before the team with the trolley gets their items! We find that this works well as the shopping takes about half the time and anything that speeds up the shopping is fun in my book!
When just Big Boy and I go shopping I will create a list for him, complete with drawings (as he can't read yet) for him to see what we need and for him to be in charge of putting into the trolley. I used to do this for Top Ender too and I think that like Flash cards the drawings help associate that all objects have a written representation and help encourage reading!
Giving children something to focus on whilst shopping really helps them to find the chore more fun and normally means that you don't spend the time rushing round the supermarket throwing in various items that your child has asked for and you have agreed to get to keep the peace!
If everyone is going shopping we normally change what we are doing slightly and work from just one list. Sometimes it will be Top Ender carries the list and calls out what we need from the list with Big Boy finding the item and putting it into the trolley with the help of Daddy and I or we might split into teams to race to do the shopping.
Racing to do the shopping is great fun because you choose items that are close together in the supermarket and give one or two items to each team to get. One team has to take the trolley with them and the other team has to rush off and return to the trolley before the team with the trolley gets their items! We find that this works well as the shopping takes about half the time and anything that speeds up the shopping is fun in my book!