OK folks, you won’t see this one on Pinterest. It’s not picture perfect, like some all those gorgeous photos other people are putting up. It’s made with the kids, and made to be used. And it didn’t take a ton of time!

It’s our Passover countdown!

I like to get the kids involved with Passover cleaning, and this is one way to do it. I wrote a list of approximately 15 minute jobs for everyone to do together, once a day, Sunday – Thursdays until Passover. I mean everyone, from the 5 month old baby (who will observe very carefully while chewing her toes or maybe a toy) to the adults, who will supervise, assign pieces, and do the work. But everyone will be working. I read once that one woman won’t do any work for Passover unless someone else in the house is working, too. That totally wouldn’t work in my house of young kids! But I can get them to help, and so I will. It’s that darn homeschool mom in me teaching responsibility and life skills. 🙂

Why Sundays through Thursdays? Because Friday and Saturday, we are busy with Shabbat prep or clean up. 🙂 They have regular chores for those days. So 5 other days a week it is.

We have about a month to Passover. Here are some of my ideas for 15 minute jobs for everyone:

• 15 minute dance party (that was for tonight after Purim. We did Passover music and had a lot of fun to kick off this project!)
• Clean boys’ room (our bedrooms have only beds – clothes are in our family closet and toys are in our playroom. So 15 minutes should be OK with everyone actually working)
• Clean girls’ room
• Empty little lego bins and sort appropriately
• Clean your own desk / drawer / shelf
• Help clean wherever Mommy directs you (these are the last few)

I also have a 15 minute photo shoot. Maybe we’ll get some photos that are great, and if not, we’ll have 15 minutes of fun with the (digital) camera and clowning around kids!

Now on to how we made it so you can, too!

Start with empty toilet paper tubes. (I’ve got a bunch of these stacked mostly neatly, waiting for inspiration for crafts!)

Since I’ve got 4 weeks of 5 days = 20 days left, I used 10 tubes. Which brings us to step 2: cut them in half. Don’t worry if you squish them a little. They’ll bounce back. And you could totally break out the rulers and measure down to the 1000th of an inch, but I just eyeballed it. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect. And if you have a cute baby with little zebra footsie pjs on your lap who is “helping,” it’s even more fun!

Cut them all in half. (I almost didn’t bother, but a. the whole tubes would be really long to reach into for your directions, and b. it takes a lot more tubes if you don’t!)

Now it’s time to call in the helpers. We used scented markers to decorate all sides, include inside and the rims of most of them.

Then take a piece of cardboard (or sturdy paper) of approximately the right size and put a lot of glue on it. Remember, this isn’t perfect and the tubes won’t all be able to reach the glue all of the way around since they aren’t cut perfectly. We want those tp tubes glued on tightly, so we need enough glue to reach them.

Put the tubes on the paper so they are all basically touching. Again, perfection doesn’t matter, just do it! (And if you have a flowered raincoat to wear over your dress and skirt and tutus while you do it, even better.)

Weigh it down with books to dry. If you used a bunch of glue (and you should!), it will dry all wonky otherwise. So stick it down. (And on another note, attempting to put a large rubber band around the whole thing will cause a lot of tension, and eventually, some of the glue covered tubes will launch themselves into the air, cackling madly. Or that could have been my 4 year old. Well, the cackling. The launching was definitely the gluey tubes. By themselves. Because of the rubber band. So, you know, just use the books.)

The dried product. I made my list of jobs in Word, triple spaced between lines, and cut each up. Fold it up and drop it into a tube. Time to find some tissue paper and cut it into rough squares approximately the size needed to cover the holes. And find a gluestick, too. Then gluestick all the tops of the (filled) tubes and stick tissue paper over it, being careful to tuck the edges down so when you punch out one, not all of them come with it.

Count backward and write the numbers on the tissue paper covered tubes. I also included Shabbat in my countdown to make it flow better, and I have a title on top with the days of the week.

Each day one kiddo gets to poke their finger into the paper and pull out our slip with marching orders. Then we’re all off to 15 minutes of work together. Here’s another shot of the finished product.

And there you have it, our Passover countdown! A fun way to assign chores and keep working a little each day toward Passover, and our redemption!

(Hey, it’s cute. Maybe I will pin it after all…)