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I’m on the look-out for new ideas to lighten my load of chores so I was excited to implement some ideas from two of my friends.  One friend (who also had her 5 kids 7 and under) told me that she had a laundry basket for each of her kids so that she could fold laundry during the day without her piles getting messed up when she got interrupted (which happens a lot when you have so many little ones).

I liked that idea so I looked for baskets that wouldn’t take up much space, but would allow me to fold and stack laundry in at least three small piles (pants, shirts and PJs).  Then I attached  an iron-on flower to each one so that the kids would know which basket was theirs (my kids are all assigned colors):At first I folded the clothes and let them put them away.  I found that even Ila and Nicole could put their own clothes away:Another friend told me that she doesn’t even fold the laundry, she just sorts it and has her kids take care of their own laundry (and her kids are the same age as my kids).  So I washed all the clothes, like I usually do, and then I gathered all the kids and told them that today they were going to learn how to help me with laundry. 

First they lined up the baskets and sorted the clothes:They wanted a picture with clothes flying in the air, it took several shots, but we finally succeeded in catching two items mid-air:Next they dumped out their baskets and I showed them how fold each type of item and then place it in a neat stack in their basket:Isaac and Charlotte picked it up quickly and had nice neatly folded piles.  Nicole had a unique way of folding, but she eagerly ran off to put her things away before I could help her learn proper folding technique.  Ila didn’t know how to fold, but did a great job putting her clothes away and little Thomas wasn’t helpful at all:The End