Safety & Person-Centered Focus
Warm Up Game
Tell us how many house-keeping tasks you can do indepdently in each room of a house. 1 minute per room.
PRESENTERS: you can use CTRL and + sign to make the picture larger in the display
Tool Box
PRESENTERS: Show this image for 30 seconds then stop sharing. Let everyone concentrate on the image. After you stop sharing see how many of the items the group can remember in the picture.
What A Mess!
PRESENTERS: Show these messy rooms. Use the questions to start a discussion.
Q&A
- What do these pictures of messy rooms make you think about?
- Are there rooms in your house that are your responsibility to keep tidy? Which ones?
- Do you keep them tidy all the time? Or do they get messy sometimes?
- Which room is the hardest to keep clean?
- Are you more naturally tidy, or more naturally messy?
- What activities do you think make a mess?
- Do you like house work? What about yard work?
- Why do we have to do house work over and over again? How come it never gets permanently done?
Body Break
<you know what you like! Do that. Love your body!>
Show & Share
Show us your favorite cleaning tool or cleaning product. It can be for your house, your possessions, or your personal grooming. Tell us what you like about it and when you started using it. STAFF--participate in show and share yourselves. It'll be fun!
Interaction/Body Break—House Keeping Skills Song: OK to stand for this one as a body break
Sing to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It"
If you're tidy and you know it clap your hands.
If you're tidy and you clean it clap your hands.
If you're tidy and you know it, then your house will surely show it. If you're tidy and you clean it clap your hands.
If you vaccuum and you dust it, nod your head.
If you vaccuum and you dust it, nod your head.
If you vacuum and you dust it, then your friends will surely trust it,
If you vaccuum and you dust it, nod your head.
If your laundry's clean and fluffy, wave your arms.
If your laundry's clean and fluffy, wave your arms.
If your laundry's clean and fluffy, then your clothes are never stuffy.
If your laundry's clean and fluffy, wave your arms.
If your lawn is mowed and trimmed punch the air
If your lawn is mowed and trimmed punch the air
If your lawn is mowed and trimmed, all your neighbors surely grinned.
If your lawn is mowed and trimmed punch the air
Life-long Learning
Discussion
- Where did you learn to do household tasks?
- How old were you when you first started taking responsibility around the house?
- Did you get allowance or paid for doing household chores?
- If you were a parent, would you give your kids allowance for doing chores?
- What kinds of chores would you make your kids do?
- Now, as an adult, do you have more responsibility for your home?
- What additional responsibilities do you have?
- What is your least favorite house keeping task?
- What task do you enjoy, or think you do especially well?
Jokes About House Work
Q: What's the best way to get rid of kitchen odors?
A: Eat out. (Phyllis Diller)
My second favorite household chore is ironing, my first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. (Erma Bombeck)
My kitchen floor is sticky, and I had to do something about it.. so finally I went out and bought some slippers. (Sarah Silverman)
<Body Break>
Wave those arms, wiggle those legs
Applying Learning
Imagine you are going to live independently with your best friend. You get a great apartment and you have cool furniture and a great TV. You are both excited for your new independent life.
About a month after moving in, you realize that your best friend is kind of a slob. They never put anything away. They never take out trash. They never cook. They never clean the toilet or sinks. They just make messes and leave them all over the apartment. Which strategy would you choose to try and fix the problem?
- Keep silent and complain to your staff or other friends when your roommate isn't around
- Tell your friend they have to clean up the whole apartment this weekend or ELSE!
- Collect all your friend's stuff and chuck in the dumpster.
- Clean up after your friend and try to make the best of it.
- Leave your friend angry notes every place they leave a mess.
- Just give up and be a slob yourself too. At least that way you don't have to do any housework
- Call your friend's mom or other relative and ask them to come clean up after your rommmate
- Schedule a time to talk with your friend and ask a staff person to help you have an open, honest conversation, explaining the problem to your roommate and asking them to help.
PRESENTERS: discuss the possible outcomes of the strategies. Each has possible benefits and possible costs. Guide the conversation toward short-term vs long-term solutions.
Culture
There is a famous play called "The Odd Couple" by Neil Simon. It's a comedy about a very tidy guy and a very sloppy guy trying to share an apartment. It was so famous it became a TV show multiple times and is still performed in the theatres all over the world. Watch this short clip.
Nobody's Perfect
House keeping is something that goes great sometimes and then gets backed up other times. No one is perfect at it. It's OK that there are messes sometimes but it's also important for our health and safety to be clean. Vote on which of these items is DIRT that needs to be cleaned, or just MESSINESS that should be tidied up.
- Maple syrup on the countertop
- Magazines on the dining table
- Mail in a pile on the kitchen island
- Bits of food stuck to the floor near the kitchen sink
- Coffee spilled on the rug
- Dust on the TV and electronics
- Cat and dog hairs on the couches and chairs
- Lotion accidentally squirted on the bathroom counter
- Mold in the shower
- Towels on the bathroom floor
- Rotted vegetables in the fridge drawer
- Chocolate syrup on the ceiling.
What Did We Learn Today?
