Zone Cleaning Rooms with Older Children

I love technology.  In a different generation I would not be able to glean from a friend's experience as she lives in New Hampshire and I haven't seen her in about six or seven years.  However, I was able to glean future wisdom from her in a virtual blink of an eye.  My dear friend read my post about learning to "fly" again and she had just posted about breaking down her children's room into zones a la FlyLady.  She has three boys and is homeschooling them all.  I love it!

You can read her original post here.

I will highlight her post below:

• Create Zones (Closet, dresser/chests, toy shelf, bookshelf, under bed)
• Each weekday has an assigned zone to work on.
• Daily (besides each zone) they are responsible for making beds, clothes in proper places, and tidy floor.
• Take a picture of a good standard of how things should look for point of reference.
• They can have their prized possessions or some other fun thing on their dresser or desk but it cannot be in a pile and should be there neatly.

That's her post in a very short and condensed version.  I think that there are ways to teach wee ones to help out with different things and to begin their training young and make it fun.

• Giving them their own (age appropriate) tools - peeler, duster, rag, shelf in laundry area, bowl, etc.  Those are their tools too help you in whatever task. 
• Involving them - Miss L loves to help with putting clothes in the washing machine.  She is also all about being right by my side while doing dishes -- even if it is only for the bubble and water entertainment value.

However, I am not sure what to do about the fact that Miss L is so very afraid of the vacuum cleaner and Miss A is at the stage of not really caring.  I thought Miss L would grow out of it but we are going on a year of this fright.  We may just have to grin and bear it.