8 Simple Ideas To Make Chores Fun for Kids and the Whole Family (#3 is Our Favorite)

What’s the hardest part of the day for every mom? Getting the whole family to clean up. It doesn’t matter if it’s picking up toys or putting away laundry, nobody really wants to do it. But some of the laws of habit making, including making a habit out of doing chores, is to make it satisfying and/or attractive. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to make chores fun for kids and everyone else!

My daughter recently watched Mary Poppins, and it dawned on me that the first thing Mary Poppins does is make the kids tidy up their room. And she introduces it as a game and sings about it too!

Duh! You’ve gotta make it fun!

Here’s a roundup of 8 of the most easy-to-implement ideas to make chores fun for kids and the whole family. 

1 | Listen to audiobooks

I’ve talked to a lot of women who don’t want to prioritize cleaning up because it feels like it takes away from other important things. Make it feel more productive by putting an audiobook on as you clean. 

So many of us list reading as something we want to do more of, so why not make it part of the cleaning routine?

2 | Listen to podcasts 

I prefer to catch up on podcasts as I clean and do chores, but this could work with kids too.

Try listening to a story podcast (we love Stories Podcast over here) and see if the kids can get the toys cleaned up or the chores completed before the end of the story.

3 | Listen to music (and have dance party as you clean up)

I was talking to a subscriber about her laundry routine. The biggest hangup was putting away the laundry, specifically, how to motivate her husband to put away his laundry.

She came up with her own solution (and it’s seriously my favorite).

She says, “Once everyone is home we all get to have 30 minutes for a snack and a rest. At the end of 30 minutes, we blast show tunes and put away laundry while dancing and singing along. So far it’s working and we don’t have any full laundry baskets by the time we start making dinner. [Our son] was actually disappointed when we told him there wasn’t any laundry to put away today.”

Oh my gosh! Talk about magic! Can you imagine your kids actually being disappointed that there aren’t any chores to do? I don’t know about you, but that sounds like heaven.

4 | Make it a race

When I was a kid and my dad and I would do the dinner dishes, we’d time ourselves to see if we could beat our record from the night before. This got us to do the dishes faster and made things a little more interesting.

Instead of a race against the clock, you could have the family race against each other or split everyone into teams to finish the chores.

5 | Give a reward at the end 

For this, I prefer natural rewards. For example, “If we all clean up, we’ll have time to watch that movie …play that game …go for a walk …etc.”

Or, if it’s your spouse, “I’ll have time to give you a backrub.” 😉

6 | Ask questions about each other’s days

When you have little kids, it’s fun to dig deeper into what they think about things. They have interesting opinions and perspectives. As you clean up, ask them about things during their day. It’s slightly distracting for both of you.

7 | Ask fun questions like, “Would you rather …?”

Along the same lines of #6, play a game of “Would you rather …?” (“Would you rather be a monkey or an elephant?”)

8 | Everyone cleans up at the same time

This one should be done with any of the other options in this roundup. Doing the chores and clean up together makes it feel like a team effort, and no one feels like they’re being singled out for having to clean up by themselves (unless they made a mess all by themselves).

These 8 super simple ideas will make chores fun for kids and the whole family.

Making it fun will give your kids good memories of their childhood, and it encourages them to be more independent and prepared for someday when they leave the nest. 

Making chores fun makes your time at home together more special. And that’s one of the most important things about home.

Need to declutter and organize to make chores and clean up easier? Download my free Where To Start Decluttering Guide here.