Kids summer activities, especially playing outside and having friends over, often leave the house a mess and the fridge empty. This is a great opportunity to work with your children to teach them how to do basic summer chores for kids and help out with the daily needs of the home.
After all, kids need to learn how to clean up after themselves for when they are grown up.
These summer chores for kids are perfect for having your children help out around the house AND learn valuable life lessons.
Bonus points if you add these into a summer chore chart and create a reward system so the kids stay motivated without you needing to nag!
Help with laundry
Summertime has more laundry than normal.
Even if your kids are spending most of their time in swimsuits, there is still extra laundry from towels that are perpetually soaked and running around the backyard.
When the kids are not playing in the water they are sweating, making them go through even more clothes than normal.
Teaching your child to hang towels after each use can be a simple way to cut down on how much laundry you need to do.
- These waterproof hooks are perfect to put on your patio or porch to hang towels outside.
- You could also get this laundry rack to dry the wet towels overnight.
Older kids can even help take some of the stress off of you when you take the time to teach them how to do laundry.
To help keep from heating up your home, do the laundry at night or consider using a laundry line for drying. Kids love to help with hanging the laundry on the line.
Sweep and mop
With the kids running in and out all day and all night, it is not uncommon to struggle with the floors becoming out of control.
With dirt and mud coming in the house all day, odds are you have to clean your floors a lot more than normal.
You can reduce this with rugs at the entrance to your home and make the upkeep less work on you by having your kids help with the sweeping and mopping each day.
- This small whisk and dust pan is especially helpful for the “after dinner crumbs” under the table. and
- The mini mop from e-cloth, which cleans with just water, even fits around the toilet so the kids can clean their own bathroom. The pad is washable, so I just toss it in the washing machine after the kids clean the house.
This kid-sized cleaning set is also perfect for younger children to use around the house.
Help with grocery shopping
Kids eat all day when they are home during the summer. The heat and all of that time playing outside makes it even more of an issue.
When it comes to keeping the house stocked with food, it is a lot of work. Have your kids help with this task.
Kids can easily help you make your grocery list and find items in the store. Your kids can also clip coupons and then give you the relevant ones as you shop.
Most importantly, they can help you put away the groceries when you get home. Put kids in charge of putting the refrigerated and frozen foods away so you do not have to worry about this.
While your kids put away the food, you can move on to prepping the next meal since kids are a bottomless pit during the summer! As always, double check that all food is put away (and that the fridge and freezer doors are shut tightly).
Collect dishes and fill the dishwasher
With the kids home all day, it seems like they are eating or drinking something nearly every moment of the day.
This leads to enough dirty dishes to be completely overwhelming. To make it worse, the kids leave their dishes all over the house and even the yard.
Even though we have a “stay in the kitchen” policy for food and drinks in my house, it is pretty much a guarantee that you will find some sort of dish or cup any time you enter my kids’ bedrooms.
But kids can start cleaning as early as age 3, so start implementing these “pick-up after yourself rules” and use a chore chart to help them stay focused.
Instead of stressing yourself out trying to keep up with collecting run-away dishes, you can have your children gather these dishes and load the dishwasher.
A great way to make this task easy is to give your child a small laundry basket to place the dishes in and carry around as they find and collect dishes. This allows them to gather them in fewer trips, which means less fussing over not wanting to do the chore.
Care for the garden
If your family has a garden, helping out with its daily care is a great chore for kids over the summer. Working in the garden will teach them many valuable lessons and give them an opportunity to get up close and personal with nature.
You can have your kids help with the watering, weeding, and harvesting from the garden.
Also, teach your child to look for insects and signs of damage to plants every time they work in the garden so that they can help catch issues before they can get out of control.
Clean up the yard
Dishes and towels are not the only things your kids leave around the house when they’re home all summer.
You want your kids to stay active and play outside, but not at the cost of more housework. 😉Help your kids stay active in mess-free ways with these Systems to Organize Summer:
Have your kids help clean up toys, trash, and other odds and ends that take over your yard from them playing. If they are old enough to drag everything outside, they are old enough to help clean up the mess!
Other forms of yard work like helping with the lawn mowing is a great way to keep your kids busy and teach them a skill they will need when they are older. A lot of kids even go on to do yard work for neighbors, family, and friends to earn extra money on the side from this simple skill.
Your kids can start helping around the house with these simple summer chores for kids.
To motivate them, create a summer chore chart and reward your kids with mess-free activities – AFTER their daily chores are finished. You could also reward them with this awesome list of summer activities for kids – I love the “kids on the go” ideas to get the kids out of the house!