A cleaning checklist for kids’ rooms empowers your children to take responsibility for their space while helping them learn valuable life skills.
This particular cleaning checklist was born out of countless arguments I had with my children over whether their rooms had really been cleaned. You know how those go: you ask them to clean their rooms. After a while, they say they’re finished, but it looks just as bad — if not worse.
In my home, that used to lead to frustration all around. I’d shown my kids repeatedly how to clean things, and I didn’t want to have to watch them every second. They knew that cleaning their rooms was part of earning their allowance, but felt like they didn’t know where to begin.
Cleaning Checklist for Kids’ Rooms
If you’ve used my printable cleaning checklists around the house, you know they break tough cleaning tasks into manageable steps. That’s the kind of structure kids need when cleaning, too, so I decided to come up with a printable cleaning checklist for kids rooms to make things easier for everyone involved.
Work Together the First Time
Here’s the deal: you can’t just hand your child a cleaning checklist and expect them to get it right the first time. Guess how I know?
Yep, our first attempt at using a cleaning checklist for kids rooms led to more frustration.
Then I actually listened to what my kids were saying. They were willing to clean their rooms (especially if that kept me out of their space) but they didn’t understand what was involved.
So, my advice is to go over the instructions below with your child step-by-step, then tackle the task together the first time as we did. After that, depending on your kids’ ages, they can use the checklist to clean their rooms independently while you do something else — or even nothing at all.
Start Here
Equipment needed:
Two bags or boxes
Cleaning cloths
Furniture polish (here’s a homemade one)
Glass cleaner (here’s a homemade one)
Fresh bed sheets and pillowcases
Vacuum cleaner
Steps:
1. Prepare to sort stuff: Mark one box/bag “Trash” and the other “Return.”
2. Pick up all trash: Start at the door and work to your right. Pick up all trash and put it in the “Trash” bag/box. Open drawers as you work and look for trash that should be thrown away. Close each drawer afterward. Once you’ve worked your way around the room, look under your bed and gather all trash. Look in your closet for trash, too. Now, set the full bag outside your bedroom door.
3. Find everything that belongs in another room. Do this just as you did with the trash, starting at the door and working toward the right, then under your bed and in your closet. Things that belong elsewhere include dishes, water glasses, and towels. Put these in the bag marked “Return.” When you’re finished gathering these things, put this bag outside your bedroom door, too.
4. Put away things that are on the floor. Toys left on the floor look messy. Put them in the toy box, on shelves, or wherever they are supposed to be stored. Pick up dirty clothes from the floor and put them in the hamper. Clean clothes should be hung up or folded and put away in the dresser. Shoes should be neatly placed on the closet floor.
5. Put away the things on your desk, dresser and nightstand. Put away toys left on the dresser. If you like to keep homework or books out where you can find them, arrange them in stacks. Things look much cleaner when stacked nicely instead of sprawled all over. Continue working until all of the flat surfaces in your room are neat and tidy.
6. Start dusting. Get one cleaning cloth very lightly wet. It should not be dripping water everywhere! Use this cloth to clean up dust. Start at the room’s door room and work to the right wiping off the top of each piece of furniture (desk, dresser, shelves, nightstand, etc.). Pick things up as you work and wipe the surface underneath them. Wipe the windowsills, too!
7. Clean the glass. Spray the mirror with a little of the glass cleaner. Use a dry, fresh cleaning cloth to wipe the mirror from top to bottom until all smudges and streaks are gone.
8. Change the sheets. Pull the bedspread and sheets off of your bed. Don’t pull off the mattress pad! Take the pillowcase off the pillow. Now, put the new sheets and pillowcase on and make your bed. Smooth the bedspread with your hands so it’s not bunched up and messy. Put the dirty sheets outside your bedroom door.
9. Start vacuuming. By now there should be nothing on the floor that doesn’t belong there, so it’s time to vacuum. Remember: never use the vacuum to pick up coins, puzzle pieces, Lego or other objects. It’s only for dirt, dust and pet hair. Begin vacuuming at the door and work your way around your room from right to left.
10. Time to finish up! Wrap the vacuum’s electric cord back on the prongs neatly. Put it outside of the door. Take dirty sheets to the laundry room. Take the Trash bag to the garbage can. Go through the bag marked “Return” and take each item to the place where it ought to go. Don’t just toss the thing in there — put it where it belongs!
The first time may seem like a lot of work, but things will go much faster every time you clean. Use the checklist below once a week to stay on track and enjoy that tidy room!
Printable Cleaning Checklist for Kids’ Rooms
Click to open .pdf for printing
More How-Tos:
How to Organize Toys: 6 Great Ideas
Daily Cleaning Routine Checklist
Pin this Cleaning Checklist for Kids’ Rooms
Another tip I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where, because the guy should be given full credit!) anyhow, for kids who become easily overwhelmed when presented with a room that is in disarray and needs to be cleaned… Most of the time, it’s the overwhelming “stuff” that puts kids (and adults) into full on “I can’t do this” mode. Once the stuff is put away, the rest of the cleaning is easier.
Take a basket and put it in the middle of the floor. This is the “inbox” go around the room and put everything that needs to be picked up into the basket (no matter what it is – no decision is made at this point – everything goes into the basket). If the basket gets full, put the overflow around the outside of the basket.
Once everything has been picked up, then and only then you start to put away. Remember everything should be in this pile!
Next: This is very important: Take one thing at a time (only one!) and put it away in its place, put it in the trash, or put it in a box to be taken to another room.
This requires less by way of decision making so it’s not such a huge mountain to climb for them. It’s much easier to decide what to do with only one thing than it is to look at a room and say “OMG I have to put ALL this away… I can’t do it!
This can be translated to any person in the house who has problems starting a clean up. It might work. It might not. Worth trying it. 🙂
My mother did something very similar when I was little. Basically, she’d wait until I was at school then dump every drawer in the middle of my room. On top of this, she’d throw everything that was on the floor of my closet or on top of my desk, dresser or nightstand. Then she’d tell me to put things away properly, one at a time.
You can imagine my attitude toward cleaning when I was a kid as a result, LOL!
Um – I think this proves, it’s all in how the project is presented… 😉
Most definitely! LOL
I actually did this when I was a kid, when I rearranged my room, everything went on the bed. Then I put stuff away where I wanted it to go.
That’s still one of my favorite ways to completely declutter and organize a room. If I can’t think of a place for something, I probably don’t need it so out it goes!
Hmm… I’ve never tried this. As a kid I remember being told “go clean your room” and then being unsure what my mom expected. I’ve been using the same approach with my boys and not been happy with the results. I think your approach might be worth considering. Thanks.
You’re welcome! I had to come up with *something* since my son’s version of cleaning his room and my version are so drastically different. Hint: his involves shoving everything under the bed. Aaaack!
We have a similar checklist for the kids rooms. Thanks for sharing at Fluster’s Creative Muster. Looking forward to seeing what you link up next week.
Checklists really are great for kids, aren’t they?
Thank you so much! My children’s idea of cleaning their rooms involves pulling OUT the Lego’s. Talk about AAAACK factor. I needed something to help.
This helped
This is a good thing. Kids should really be train to do some cleaning. If they do this tips and make it a habit they will eventually bring that until they grow old. Thanks for posting.
I agree. Kids tend to be the main source of mess, and it’s good for them to learn how to clean after themselves rather than take for granted that it’s Mom’s job to do it.
I totally agree with you.
This is beautiful.
I’m glad you like it, Susan!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful parenting and cleaning tips for kids with us at Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop
Olivia, co-hostess
Reinvented Collection
Thank you for hosting!
Great idea! Cleaning a room can be overwhelming, and this checklist would be a great help. Thanks for linking up and sharing at Celebrate It!
Thanks for hosting!
This might help us! My kids definitely struggle with figuring out where to start and then getting overwhelmed by too much. Saving this for sure!
Using a checklist really does help them stay on track, and they feel so proud of themselves when they’re done!
This is a wonderful method, I’m going to have to give it a try with my four little ones! Thanks for the free printable as well!
You’re welcome!
We do the same thing in our house. The kids love knowing exactly what is expected, and it makes everything so much easier!
It really does make the whole “clean your room” process less painful for everyone, doesn’t it?
What a great checklist! We are always struggling to keep my 9 year old’s room clean! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Getting it clean seems to be easier than keeping it clean. LOL
This checklist for cleaning a kids room is absolutely wonderful! I give it to my daughter every week and her room gets cleaned with no arguments! She even asks for me to print it off if I forget. BTW, she asked me to tell you that the new version is even better than before. Thanks for making my life a little easier!
Okay so im a tween who cleans my own room the only problem is im lazy when it comes to thing like that. Do you have any tips for lazy tweens-teens or lazy people in general when it comes to cleaning?
My best advice is to listen to your mother.
What a great idea!!! I’m going to print this off and laminate it. We do the inbox as well. My 8 year old gets overwhelmed and he always asks for help cleaning his room – but what he’s really looking for is direction and this just may be the key!!! I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂
Thank you, Nadine! I think you’re absolutely right — kids just need a bit of direction, and it always seems to help when we can hand them something like a checklist which they can read and follow step by step. Please let me know how it goes!