#1 Buckets

As I write this I am stuck at the Vancouver BC airport. Looks like I will be able to get to Seattle and then sleep on a bench somewhere till morning, then hop a flight to Salt Lake in the morning and then on to Atlanta in a couple of days. So.....I will be blogging since I have my laptop with me.....and a ton of Canadian candy. Ya that'll be an interesting dinner.

I wish I had a photo of the colored plastic buckets or dishpans that I used when the kids were growing up.

I found this photo online that has the same idea. It's super pixelated though.

I put a tall open shelf in the laundry area  and put in one "bucket" for each child (6) and one for my husband and me and one for loose socks. They were labelled with their names but the colors were better identifiers.

The kids were responsible for getting their laundry down to me and separating into the "whites, colors and towels" hampers that I had. If they didn't bring them down their laundry didn't get done. (I was real big on natural consequences". )

When the laundry was done I folded everything and placed in their buckets. They were responsible for getting them back to their rooms. It worked well when they were little. Once they turned 12, they were given new privileges and new responsibilities and doing their own laundry was one of them.

The socks bucket was for loose socks. I would call the clothes dryer the "great Burmuda rectangle"because pairs of socks would go in but then some vanished. Every once in a while I'd put the bucket in front of someone watching tv and said "here, match these up"

I loved my Buckets system!