Ping Pong Cleaning

Today is Saturday, February 11th about 7:00 am and the kids are already asking if they can pick their ping pong. Last weekend we received about 9 inches of snow.  Saturday morning was spent clearing the driveway and patio, building a snowman and snow fort and then reclearing the driveway and patio. Once we were back inside warming up and drinking hot cocoa I decided to make our Ping Pong Cleaning Jar while the kids watched a movie cuddled up on the couch.  I saw the original idea on Pinterest, made a few tweeks and voila a brilliant idea was born at our house.

The concept I discovered on Pinterest was as a clutter busting game designed as a little bit of competition.  I chose to use the idea to make our weekly cleaning routine more fun and get the kids to help more. I bought 36 ping pong balls to get started. 

First I made my list of all the items the needed to be done around the house on a weekly basis and broke them down into single items; cleaning the bathroom was broken down into five ping pong balls: Clean the Toilet, Clean the Sink, Scrub the Floor, Clean the Mirror, Clean the Tub. (My first mistake was simply writing Tub....my seven year old son grabbed this one first and went running to the bathroom yelling, "Can I have bubbles." Ooops, definitely need to be more specific.)

Second I went through the list and "color coded" each chore.  For example all "Clean Toilet" ping pong balls were colored blue and all "Clean Mirror" balls were colored orange.  This way I knew that if the kids took one of each color the cleaning items would be evenly distributed and they would each get to do a little of everything.

Once I had my cleaning list and color code list I started coloring the ping pong balls, filling in half of one side and writing on the other.  My printing isn't nice and neat, but it gets the job done.

The kids kept peaking into my room trying to figure out what was going on. They couldn't wait to start picking ping pong balls.

I must say, I have never run around so quickly doing so much cleaning in my life. Each task took a little teaching, inspecting, and a touch of re-cleaning once they were done. I don't expect my 5 and 7 year olds to have perfect cleaning skills yet, but with a little practice their skills will improve.  :) 

In a short period of time, the house was sparkly clean, laundry was done and put away, and my kids were so happy and actually asked, "Can we do it again tomorrow?" 

This brings us to today, one week later and the kids asking to start "Ping Pong Cleaning" rather than watch cartoons at 7:00 am.  Mommy needs her coffee first.  A little Saturday morning cartoons never hurt anyone.  Ping Pong Cleaning can wait an hour or so.