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Play the Cleaning Game
Sweep Your Child off the Couch
By Laura Cone
Musical Chores (two or more players)
Designate a project such as dusting, scrubbing the floor or picking up toys to each child and start the music. Every time the music turns off, the children switch chores.
Puppet Dusters (one or more players)
Make sock puppets and have children slip them on their hands for dusting. Start a contest to see whose puppet gets the dirtiest.
Puppet Shiners (two players)
You and your child each wear a sock puppet to clean the patio door window. You are on the outside and your child is on the inside. Make it a game to follow one another's hand movement as you clean the window.
Baseboard Race (two players)
Start two children on opposite walls in the same room. Give each child a sock or rag for dusting the top of baseboards. The child that gets to the end of their wall first wins a prize.
Dash for Trash (one or more players)
Designate a laundry basket for each child. Start a timer for 30 seconds and see which child can put the most misplaced clutter in his or her basket before the timer goes off.
Hill, who has two grown children, says another fun game is to play hide-and-seek by hiding spoons or other objects under cushions, pillows or on windowsills. The object is for your child to find all of them by the time he 
or she is finished cleaning. "With hide and seek, if you have more than one child you can have a race to see who can find the most objects while they are cleaning," Hill says.