With Free Printable Minecraft Inspired Chore Chart
Download NOW–>Printable Chore Chart Game ChoreCraft
Ellie and I have a ton of hair.
And like most hairy creatures, we shed like crazy, which can have some serious consequences with our vacuum. We’ve had the same vacuum for just over 10 years. John and I actually bought it with wedding money. Isn’t that romantic!?
We really wanted a good one and back then it was great. But oh my gosh the brushroll has always gotten ridiculously trapped with all of our hair. OK, probably not John’s since he’s bald, but definitely the other three of us.
Isn’t it just gross!? eewwww.
Over 10 years, I have spent a LOT of time cleaning that dang brushroll. I have to take the plastic around the brush roll apart, then with scissors I hack away at the hair, string and other junk for what seems like forever. Is this TMI or do you have the same problem?
It’s really hard to get the stupid thing back together too, so it takes quite a frustrating while to get the old vacuum back in working order. I’d guess probably 30 minutes each time I have to go through this process, and with the amount of hair we have it’s needed a lot. What a pain in the butt!
Then my new vacuum came. The Eureka Brushroll Clean™ with SuctionSeal®. Insert angels singing. It actually has a self-cleaning brushroll feature. Yes. Self-Cleaning Vacuum. It takes less than 30 seconds, and the pedal is so easy the kids can do it themselves. I’ve only had it less than a week but I decided to really put it through the ringer and pulled out a bunch of hair from our hairbrushes to kind of speed up the brushroll tangling process for testing purposes.
Then I vacuumed the entire upstairs floor of our house. The brush roll definitely got tangled as you can see, but then I pushed the “brush roll clean pedal” and in less than 30 seconds the roller went from this before to this after:
SELF-CLEANING VACUUM
Being lucky to now own one myself, I’m seeing a lot of vacuum cleaning and hassle saved in my future, which of course is awesome. But to be honest I’m lazy and I hate cleaning, so what I really want is someone else to do it all for me.
We are super fortunate that we have someone clean our 2-story house once a month. It was one of the best gifts we’ve ever given ourselves in our home. The deep clean is taken care of, but of course the regular stuff needs doing more often. My kids are a mess and confession time, so am I. Poor John. He’s definitely the cleanest of the household, and he’s pretty handy too. The dear man.
Ronin, Ellie and I lack that special cleaning gene, and I feel so guilty that I’m not doing such a great job teaching them to be more motivated to clean and do chores.
Now the kids, they are uber motivated when it comes to playing games. Take Minecraft, for example. They LOVE it. In fact, the day John put together the new vacuum the kids were doing this. Those excited faces were definitely NOT for the vacuum.
But then a thought struck me. What if I turned chores into a game? John is a video game designer as you might know, so I brainstormed with him and developed an awesome printable chore chart/game inspired by the kids’ favorite Minecraft. And Wow! It’s been like magic. The key was John’s idea, to have them “collect emeralds” for each chore, similar to collecting gems in the video game.
Download a Free Printable of “ChoreCraft” HERE.
After the kids fill out their charts for the week, we keep a running tally of how many “emeralds” they’ve collected.
These “emeralds” are then redeemable for certain treats or activities that we’ve laid out in advance. You can create your own redeemable rewards that make sense for your family. Examples might include:
- Trade in 25 emeralds for ice cream.
- Trade in 50 emeralds for a family night at the movie theater. (The kids could even pool their emeralds for this one making it even more fun to share their points to gain the reward.)
When we started discussing the possible rewards, Ronin asked what he could get for one emerald. I told him a hug or kiss, of course! He thought that was a pretty good trade off. But knowing my boy, he’ll save up as many emeralds as he can to get the biggest reward possible.
I can tell you that we started this system on Monday, and I have never in my life seen Ronin so motivated. He actually did his homework without even one word from me. That literally has never happened, not even once in his entire seven year old life. He also realized very quickly that laundry and vacuuming gives him extra emeralds so he’s asked to do both the last few days.
Both he and Ellie took turns vacuuming the upstairs hallway, which they have also never done before. I’m telling you, it’s a magic chore chart. Talk about happiness!
Download now: Minecraft Inspired Printable Chore Chart
How would the Eureka Brushroll Clean™ with SuctionSeal® technology benefit your family?
If you like this, don’t forget to check out my other Minecraft-inspired ideas!
I love this new technology. I love the features especially the easy clean-up. Between myself and my dog- hair is an issue.
I love this new technology! We have four dogs, and 14 rescue parrots. So we vacuum a lot of fur and feathers. I love that it removes the hair from its own brush!
The self cleaning is wonderful. I would love to have this one.
Great post! Me, my daughter and our Labrador also lose a lot of hair around the house and it is nice what the vacuum cleaners is able to deal with the situation! Thanks for the lovely post! 🙂
I love your chore chart! Where did you get the font? I would love to make one like this but use velcro so I can swap out the chores, my boys bore easy when they have the same tasks to do and some I find are more appropriate for weekends vs weekdays or different seasons (out door chores). Thank you!!
Thank you! Actually if you do a google search for “Minecraft font” you can find it to download. That’s a great idea to mix up the chores to hold their interest.