Think About the Ant! {Wisdom & Chores for Kids}

Every morning we (try) to do a “5-minute clean”. We cart the timer around to every room and clean for 5 minutes. If the room is already clean, we find something else to do in there–straighten a drawer, dust, reorganize something, etc. It started off as a really fun thing for the kids to do because it was so fast. Granted, doing the whole house takes about an hour. But doing it 5 minutes at a time is pretty easy.

This morning (and for several mornings in a row) when I say, “OK, let’s do our 5 minute clean!” Lydia says, “I don’t want to clean! I’m tired! I don’t like it!” I usually say, “I don’t either. But it feels good when we’re done!” I decided we’ve got to figure out a way to understand that cleaning up is part of giving back to our family–in fact, is a part of being in our family.

Anyway, I was racking my brain this morning (after the 5 minute clean) for a craft or a verse to memorize. And I kept getting back to “I wish I could find a verse that talked about working hard!” And then it hit me—a verse, that is. I remembered a verse, not that I learned as a kid, but that Lydia just learned at CAMP PRIMO.

Have I told you about Camp Primo? I don’t think I have! EEK! My parents’ do a 2-3 day “cousin camp” every summer for the grandkids (all 3 of ’em). They go hiking, creek stomping, build fires, make walking sticks, do crafts and more. And they always study a specific Bible story or theme. This year at Camp Primo, they talked about ANTS. I honestly couldn’t remember all the words to the verse so I asked Lydia to tell it to me. She immediately started saying the verse with hand motions. I promise these are not posed. You can see Asa walking in and out of them. I just snapped as she talked. Can you guess the verse?

Did you catch it? OK. Maybe not. It’s Proverbs 6:6…

You people {point to people}
who don’t want to work {cross hands out in front of you},
think {point to head}
about the ant {make crawling ant on hand}!
Consider its ways and be wise {hold one finger up like a wise person}!
Proverbs 6:6 {6 fingers & then 6 fingers}

I decided we’d make a big banner of this verse to remind ourselves (me included!) that working is considered WISE! After I wrote the verse on a giant piece of brown paper (which is my favorite way to do anything, just tape that paper to the hardwoods and let the kids have at it!) we pulled out our stamp pads and the kids made fingerprint ants.

Of course, Asa is always a little more aggressive. He just stuck both hands straight into the ink and then crawled down the paper making his mark. His poor shorts are ruined!

Lydia told me she counted all the ants and there were 30 of them. I didn’t double check but regardless, we made a nice big colony to remind us to be wise and work!

How do you instill a love of work in your children?

ps–Here is a past Camp Primo post…I promise it is worth a read! I was thinking about having my mom post her philosophy on Camp Primo and some of the fun stuff they did. Would you be interested in hearing that? You could at least forward it to your parents, right? 🙂