May 29, 2017

Let’s Do Laundry – Simple Tips to Teach Kids

Laundry can be all-encompassing, overwhelming, and time consuming. Over the years I’ve developed lots of shortcuts and easier ways to make it through the piles. Today I’m going to share the method that I teach my kiddos to help them learn to do their laundry with the hope that it might help you teach your kids too.

If you’re new here you might want to check out my laundry routine – I do at least one load of laundry daily and I’ve found that it’s a huge time saver.

A couple things to point out first:

• Each of my kids have their own laundry basket that stays in their bedroom closet. I find that this really helps because there isn’t any sorting to see whose clothes are whose. One basket, one kid, easy peasy 🙂
• No sorting through the clothes and separating whites from colors – new outfits go straight into the wash by themselves on COLD to set the color. My oldest is 11 and we’ve been doing this since then and guess what? No white t-shirts have been dyed pink or light blue 😉  I do separate my husband my clothes because we have enough whites and darks for two loads.
• I wash the kids clothes on COLD and rinse on COLD and I use this laundry powder and white vinegar for softener (this also helps keep clothes colorfast) and wool dryer balls to keep the static away.

Let’s Do Laundry – Simple Tips to Teach Kids

Here’s the process we use for sorting, folding, hanging and putting clothes away. My littlest one will help me as I fold and hang his clothes by putting away undies, socks, and folded clothes. Having your littles a part of the laundry process is a really easy way to inactively teach them how to do their own clothes. Now, my older two are old enough to manage the process, they already know what to do and just need some guidance. It’s a win-win!

Start with taking the clothes out of the laundry basket – as you take them out separate them out into piles – socks, undies, shirts that are hung up, pants, shorts, skirts, etc. Lay them out on a clean floor, bed, or table.

Once they’re all separated out, start by hanging up your shirts. We use this method – I mentioned it on Instagram:

1. Grab your hangers – have them all facing the same way (it’s easier to quickly hang the clothes this way)
2. Put a hanger on the first item on top of the stack
3. Fold the hanger over so it’s still on the stack but not hung up
4. Keep going until everything in the stack is on a hanger
5. Hang up the stack

Fold pants, jeans, t-shirts and anything else that needs to be folded.

Once you have everything folded or hung, put it away! That’s it – a method to help tame the madness that is laundry!

Here’s one of my favorite kid laundry tips – straight from my book Simply Clean – have you grabbed your copy?