Load sighs and complaints are probably the only things you hear when you tell your children to clean. However, cleaning doesn’t have to be a boring chore. Have you ever noticed how all those Disney movies your kids watch endlessly always involve cheerful cleaning sessions? Well, you don’t need to be in a Disney movie to make cleaning more fun. In fact, with a little bit of creativity you can make cleaning a game for your kids. You can make cleaning a game with maybe a little music and a little competition added to your regular chores.

Watching all those world class athletes compete this summer may have sparked a little competitiveness in you and your children. Don’t waste it.  Apply this drive to your cleaning and start the Cleaning Games. So break out a stopwatch and whistle, or just a kitchen timer and start competing for cleanliness. If you have more than one child you can have them race to tidy their rooms. Only have one room? Then give them a challenge. Can you clean it in ten minutes? Or break it into sections with time challenges, five minutes for tidying the closet. First you will want to lay out some rules. Points can be added or taken away from their score for various things. Lost objects found in the process of cleaning add points to the score while objects broken during and
overly hasty cleaning will cause the competitor to lose points. You are the judge and quality of the cleaning is left up to your judgement. For fun you can use your finger, or even white gloves, to do exaggerated dust tests. Making marks on a clipboard and scowling while you survey every corner of
the cleaned room is encouraged. Check all bed making efforts for style. After your inspection you can tally up the points for time, found objects etc. on your clipboard and announce a winner.

The winner can be rewarded with chocolate, or maybe a gold star on a chart, or perhaps even a favourite activity or outing. Rewards are naturally best chosen to suit your children and are up to you. The Cleaning Games can be a one time event or can become part of your routine. See if your children can improve their times in cleaning events with charts that note the progress each time you
hold a competition. You could keep the chart on the refrigerator and reward them with gold stars and maybe small prizes for improvement at the end of a week or month. You can hint that faster times can be achieved with rooms that are kept at a slightly tidier level. This sort of competition may even encourage your children to clean on their own.

The Cleaning Games can be instated for one single event in order to clean a child’s room, or they can be expanded to include as many chores as you have. You may need to be the second competitor if you only have one child. The point is not who is competing but rather that cleaning is more fun if it
involves some competition. Set challenges to see if you can clean the bathroom in the time it takes your child to clean their room. You could clean the same room but tackle different areas and see who finishes first. Give each child, or yourself and your child, a different mirror to clean. Time them
and of course deduct for streaks and poor quality cleaning. Another event could be the garbage run. Each child could take a bag of trash and run it out to the bin on the street. The fastest runner wins.

It is often details that really make something fun. Aside from a clipboard and stopwatch you may want to wear a hat to look like a coach, or maybe make a badge to label yourself as a judge. Take the time to come up with names for your cleaning events. Taking out the trash can be the bin sprint and mopping the kitchen can be a mopping marathon. If you want a little less racing and
competition in some of your events you can make mopping into a danceathon. The person with

the best moves while mopping the floor can win this event. Or you can make it an event without a winner. Either way, put on some of your favourite up-beat music and start dancing around your floor until it’s clean. You are really only limited by your creativity. If you really want to give your house a complete cleaning you could create a triathlon to tackle the worst areas. Pick three rooms that need cleaning the most and divide them into even sections, one for each of your children, and have them race to clean their section. Make sure you shout out times like a commentator as they clean.

Photo Source: Flickr Windell Oskay

Maybe you would have more fun by holding a pentathlon of five random cleaning tasks. You will want to start by assigning each competitor an equal number of rooms. Lay out the rules ahead of time for this event. Tell the kids the order of the cleaning tasks for that room and make sure they know they must finish the first one before moving on to the second. Start with the doorknobs in the room, then move to the windowsills for the second task. For the third event have your children clean the often ignored ledges of your sash windows before moving on. The fourth task can either be lampshades or general dusting flat surfaces and shelves. Lastly have the children finish with whatever your house has the most of, whether it is books or baseboards, and have them dust them all in their assigned rooms. The fastest overall wins.

Don’t forget that you are the judge as well as the parent and you can send your child back to clean more thoroughly if you feel they did an inadequate job. Make sure you choose activities that are suitable for the safety of your children and are age appropriate. You can use these events or substitute your own activities and chores to create your own Cleaning Games. Just remember that
cleaning doesn’t need to be a chore, if you let it, it can actually be fun.

This is a guest post written by Melinda Wilson on behalf of her client, The Sash Window Workshop, a manufacturer of high quality sash windows.