homemaking

Welcome to 30 Days of Homemaking for Girls at Homegrown Mom, Sponsored by Plan to Eat – Simple Meal Planning

(Originally posted in Feb. 2009)

This post is part of the Creating a Homekeeping Book series

If you’ve made a homekeeping book for yourself, maybe you’d like to make one for your daughter as well. Or maybe you don’t need a book at all but you’d like your daughter to make some new habits.

Getting Started

The first section in Coco’s book is a list of her chores.

I used a 1” binder with a clear view cover for Coco’s book. It is small, so it’s not intimidating, and she can decorate it, so it’s fun.

Instead of planning several weeks (like I do for myself), I give her just one sheet per day.

On this sheet, you’ll list any chores you want her to do that day.

Don’t forget her schedule when planning out chores. If she has regular lessons or sports, you may want to assign easier chores on those days.

Some things, like making her bed, may be on the list every day.

I put the sheets in plastic page protectors, and she can use a dry erase marker to check things off each day.

Here’s an example of a couple days out of Coco’s book: (All in her bedroom*)

Monday:

Make Bed

Pick up toys/trash/laundry

Dust

Clean blinds/windowsill

Vacuum

Tuesday:

Make Bed

Pick up toys/trash/laundry

Straighten bookshelves and headboard

*Coco helps out daily around the house, on an as-needed basis, but the chores in her homekeeping book focus on her bedroom. I want her to think of it as her own little home that she is responsible for. (Note: This was two years ago, when Coco was 12. She is now 14 and has added chores from around the house on her lists.)

Ideas for other sections in your book

Decorating ideas. Have her collect ideas for decorating out of magazines, etc. to make her room a home.

Cleaning directions. Either your own, or copied out of books and magazines.

Table Setting. Directions and ideas. Many cookbooks have diagrams, or you can find one online.

Fun Snacks. Many girls’ magazines, like American Girl and Family Fun, have fun snack ideas. She can collect them here in her book.

Menu plan. For an older girl, you can help her make a sample menu plan for the family.

Entertaining. Find ideas for parties and gatherings and file them here.

Hospitality. Here, she can store tips and verses on hospitality and can practice them when her friends visit.

Other how-to areas you might cover, depending on your household might be: Sewing, cooking, laundry, ironing, gardening, organizing, crafts, etc.

Later on this month, I’ll be sharing some printables for your daughter’s notebook. Please let me know if there’s any particular sheets you’d like to see.

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HomeKeeping Lessons for Kids

Each week, I set aside a couple of hours to intentionally teach the girls some aspect of homemaking. While they learn from many tasks during the day, we all look forward to these times together that are especially fun.

Some “lessons” we’ve had include cooking, organizing, cleaning, table settings, menu planning, scrapbooking, and hospitality. Perhaps someday I will learn to sew and teach them that as well!

So that I don’t forget to include these fun lessons, I will note on Coco’s weekly assignment sheet which day we are having one. I usually take a short amount of time to prepare (even if only in my mind) and I always work it in with something we already have going on.

For instance, a couple weeks ago, we had friends coming over so I did a class on hospitality that day. Last week, we had banana bread on our menu, so I planned for this recipe to be their project. Then, I had the girls give two of their loaves away. That was a simple class on preparing food gifts for others.

Every once in a while, I will share some of our ideas for these little classes, and I will post them in the HomeKeeping category. Today, I want to share my basic, very loose outline.

First, I introduce our subject and talk about why it is important. I usually have a verse that goes along with our subject.

Then, I brainstorm with the girls. That is, I take the ideas they already have and add a few of my own. Sometimes we are just chatting in the kitchen while we get ingredients out, like who we could give a food gift to, or sometimes we’re sitting at the table, writing ideas on the whiteboard. I like this because we are all contributing ideas and the girls have lots of good ones! I also get to see what they’ve already learned over the years just by living life in our home, and that can be encouraging as a mom.

Next, we might do some research. Of course we don’t call it research! We look through books and magazines to find samples, ideas, and instructions and add them to Coco’s HomeKeeping book. She often works on this on her own time because she enjoys it so much. When Soleil gets older, I’ll have her keep one as well.

Finally, we put our skills to work. The most fun, by far, is the hands-on application of what we’ve just learned. We’ll cook, prepare a food basket, set a fancy table for dinner, go grocery shopping, or even clean their closet.

Lastly, we clean up! Following through with this step is important, and teaches responsibility. It’s also fun and goes faster when we’re all helping, while of course lightening the load for me.

All of these skills are things the girls will learn over time by being part of the family and household. Yet, by deciding to NOT multitask for a couple hours each week and dedicating that time to enrich their homemaking skills, we not only learn and have fun, we grow closer and bond over these projects.

Isn’t that what keeping a happy home is all about?

Do you have any ideas or requests for ideas on a particular homekeeping subject? Please share!