Laundry

Doing laundry has a lot of steps. It is a challenging task to learn to do independently because the steps cannot all be done at once.  For that reason, a good pre-requisite skill to teach is using timers.  That way, once the laundry is sorted and the first load is in the washer, you can add setting a timer as the last step on the list.  I’ll post about some ways to teach timers in this week’s Sunday Scaffolding to help.

Here’s how our list looks now. This is just part one. I am happy to share the rest if you’d like. Just comment below or contact me by e-mail: [email protected].

Your child can use the timer on their iPad or you can get an inexpensive handheld timer for your child to use just for laundry. When the timer goes off, you can teach your child to go back to the washroom and swap out the laundry. You can see why we work on this so often.  This journal entry was a decade ago and we are still working on mastering this skill. 

If you’ve been following along, you know we have been slowly building laundry skills over time.  Back when this journal entry was written, Mikey was just helping with the first part of the process. He would load the clothes into the washer, put in some detergent and press the buttons on the machine to get it started.  Or (not and), he would help fold some towels or help swapping the laundry from the washer to the dryer. He didn’t have his own list to follow because he just helped me as I did it.

When he wrote this journal entry, Mikey was still putting lots of non-food items in his mouth. He needed to be watched very closely, so when I went to the laundry room, he usually came too. He was just getting exposed to the process. I was keeping him safe and teaching him that helping out is what all family members do.

Now we use tide pods because Mikey does not put random things in his mouth anymore…and has not done so for several years…we’re well outside the danger zone. I switched because they’re just easier to manage (no chance of spilling or adding too much detergent). He always does small loads with just one tide pod. That also allows us to do laundry more often to get more practice.

For specifics on how we taught sorting colors, click the link below.