New Chore System- Zone Responsibillity

Hi there! I hope that everyone's summer is going great! We have been doing good here, just enjoying our time with family and friends as well as some small vacations and day trips. 

I wanted to talk about one thing that we started at the beginning of summer regarding our chores around the house. I am one to always look for a better/more effective or efficient way to do things. We have done a chore chart for the past ten years since my oldest was about two years old. However, in the past six months, I was thinking that it was about time for a change. Here are the reasons:

1. With having five kids, I was having a hard time training one on one how to properly do things. For instance: My older two girls were in charge of the dishwasher, taking turns every other day to load and unload. The problem would be when I went to work in the kitchen and found either dirty dishes in the cupboard or maybe things not put away properly, I would not know who I needed to re-train. 
2. I was constantly going to the chore chart to see who's day it was to do the garbage/clean bathroom etc. It was not an effective system for us.

After doing some thinking and reading about how other large families keep a handle on things, I decided we would start doing zones. So here is what we are doing:

• We split the house into five zones: Kitchen, kids' bathroom, living room, dining room and laundry room.
• We made a list of what needs to be done in each room and posted them on the wall. Such as for living room: Vacuum/empty garbage/dust/tidy etc...
• We assigned one child to each zone, yes, including the three year old!
• They switch rooms at the beginning of the month.

How is this working for us? We are loving it! The kids love that they have just one room to concentrate on. They are also enjoying the one on one training time with mom! How am I liking it? Well, now when I am working in a room and I see something that needs to be done, I can just ask whoever is in charge of that room to come take care of it. When there is training that needs to be done, I don't have to look and see who is in charge of that particular chore for the day, I ask whoever is in charge to come and we train. 

At the beginning of the month, when we change zones, I spend a couple days training the younger kids on what they need to know for the new room. After they have spent a couple days learning, I merely go verbally through the list of chores every day to make sure they have completed their tasks. Then just train as needed throughout the month.

As far as my three year old, he just becomes my buddy for whatever room he is "in charge of"! For instance, right now, he is in charge of the kitchen! So he is helping me put dishes away, load the dishwasher, clean, cook etc...last month he helped me in the dining room and the month before it was the living room.

Tonight I asked the girls if they would rather do zones or a chore list and they said in unison: "ZONES!"