A cleaning tool for the large family

I've got a neato cleaning device for you. It is not a new "Spiffer", and it won't hardly cost you a cent!

It is the "Inspection Game".

In the last month or so, my children have become great philosophers and mathematical theoreticians. While I have been mostly tied to the chair or the bed by my pregnancy sickness, they have been contemplating such questions as:

If I am supposed to clean my room, and Mom never comes to make sure I do, do I have to clean my room at all?

or mathematical equations such as this one:

If there are five of us cleaning the kitchen, wouldn't the kitchen be just as clean if 4 of us loaf while one of us does all the work?

Well, yesterday was a pretty good day for me, so I pulled out one of my favorite cleaning devices--the inspection sheet!

I have a number of these printed up and bound in my Common Place Book. I created them using Microsoft Publisher, but one could use Open Office (which you could get for free) just as well. 

I have created a chart with the first column filled with entries such as this:

-table and chairs

-dishes

-counters

-sinks

-fridge-in

-fridge-out

-pantry

-cabinets

-floors

-switch laundry

-time

-cooperation

After this column, I have created more narrow columns that will hold a number from one to five, with 1 being the best, and 5 being the worst. This system works best if it is viewed like a golf score--the lower the score, the better. In this way, I can give them a time limit of 15 minutes and then add any time they go over to the total. 

Then I make sure that, after they all declare they are done, I inspect, and that my inspection is very strict--I run my hands over the counters and look sideways at the appliances to make sure they are not streaked. I give them extra points if they have been goofing off or they have been bickering. At the beginning everyone is assigned a "zone" so that everyone will know what he/she is specifically supposed to do, but they are also instructed that, once a person is done with his/her zone, he is required to help others so that the team gets a better score. 

After I inspect, I tally all of the numbers and announce the score. I also make the children shore up the areas that were under-par. 

I have also found it helpful to take each session's data and plug it into a graph--usually one scribbled on a piece of notebook paper and placed on the fridge. This visual aid gives them something to think about as they compare their performance (and gives real-life application to all of those silly graphing math pages).

I have used this system off-and-on for many years, and I am always amazed at how fast and efficient they can all become--when they stop "contemplating" and actually get to work!