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Age Appropriate Chores for Children

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It is amazing what young children take joy in doing. Here is a list of age appropriate chores for children.

Some people might read these lists and not believe it is possible. But if you would like your child to not only do these chores, but enjoy contributing to the household, follow these tips:

  1. Never force the child – you can do these alongside each other or step in when they need help
  2. Look for child-sized brooms, mops and utensils to give the greatest success
  3. Slow down taking time to show your child how to do these tasks
  4. Keep your movements slow, and limit talking at the same time – makes it easier for them to copy you
  5. Makes chores around the house lots more fun if there is a little one alongside trying it out too
  6. Let go of perfection – you may find that the spill is not completely wiped up, there is water at the bottom of the pot plant etc.
  7. Scaffold skills – start with one step at a time and build on it
  8. Enjoy yourselves – if it starts to feel like hard work, come back to it in a couple of weeks

To download as a pdf, click here. For a black & white version, click here.

Age Appropriate Chores for Children

Montessorians often don’t refer to these as chores. We like to include children in our daily life and these skills are usually called practical life skills. But chores is the name most people commonly use. Hope no-one is offended either way.

Also, it probably doesn’t need to be said, but to make it abundantly clear, these activities are to be supervised by an adult. And the adult in some cases would help finish off, for example, brushing the teeth with a toddler.

NOW AVAILABLE IN OTHER LANGUAGES!

Unfortunately I cannot keep up with all the offers to translate into other languages. Even though people volunteer their time to translate them, it takes time to keep the website updated. So I’m currently stopping with further translations. Thank you for your interest though!

Russian

With thanks to Margarita Jones for the translation

German

With thanks to Kerstin Mattischek for the translation

Altersgerechte Aufgaben für Kinder

Italian

With thanks to Raffaella Caso from BabyGreen.it for the translation

Spanish

With thanks to Melissa Moore from neighborhood-centers.org for the translation

Portuguese

With thanks to Maria Antonia Nunes for the translation

Slovak

With thanks to Aneta Kianek-Edwards from maxandnaoli.com for the translation

age appropriate chores for children slovakian

Arabic

With thanks to Jailan Heidar from Early Years Parenting for the translation

chores infographic - arabic

Dutch

Kindly translated by Leen De Keyser from Manine Montessori with thanks

chores infographic - Dutch

Hungarian

With thanks to Emese Szanyi of Montessori Junior for help with the translation