Art © 2007 Carol Koeller       On the Line   It's summertime, the weather's fine and we dry laundry on the line. I find socks among the clothes and m-a-r-c-h them down the line in rows.   Grandma hangs the great big sheets. They build my walls-- so fresh and sweet! I stay there, quiet as a mouse, and play inside my laundry house.     I DON'T WANT TO CLEAN MY ROOM: A Mess of Poems About Chores   illustrated by Carol Koeller Dutton Children's Books ISBN: 978-0-525-47776-1

As a preschool teacher, I earned that making chores fun with games or silly songs makes them a lot more appealing, and this trick worked well at home, too. Both my boys loved to play around in the clean laundry, and when we got a new dryer with a fold down door, my younger son really liked to help me take the clothes out. That inspired the poem Laundry Day. When my editor read Laundry Day, she asked about more poems about doing chores, and the rest is, as they say, messtory.

From Kirkus:

"Preschool teachers may find this collection useful for reinforcing basic housekeeping skills in the classroom, and parents might like to try the poems with their preschoolers as a way of focusing on the message of families working cooperatively." © 2007

Need some help getting the chores done at your house? Try a printable chore chart!

Individual chart with girl pictured

Individual chart with boy pictured

Family chore chart