How to Teach Kids to Sort Laundry

Teaching kids how to sort laundry can make a homemaker's job much easier. Sorting laundry is a skill that can be mastered by a child. Round up the kids and the laundry hampers so you can learn how to teach kids to sort laundry.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Laundry Hampers
• dirty laundry to sort
• children to sort laundry

Teaching Kids How to Sort Laundry

1. Explain to the children that it's laundry sorting time. Have the children help round up all of the laundry hampers from the house. If they have a color-sorting hamper in their closet then you can just use that.

2. Tell children that each hamper or compartment is for a different kind of clothes. White socks, sheets and underpants might all go into one place whereas denim blue jeans or red dresses might go into other hampers.

3. 

   Explain to the children that each kind of clothing is washed with a different water temperature. If you can identify an item that's been damaged by incorrect washing, now would be a good time to illustrate the principle with an example. If an item is several colors, be sure to explain your reason for choosing the correct hamper.

4. Try keeping laundry sorted each day by using compartmentalized laundry hampers. Sorting clothes as they're removed makes it much easier to do a load of laundry without searching through multiple laundry hampers to find enough of one color to wash.

5. Rejoice! Once children understand how to sort laundry, you can begin to teach them how to load and operate the washing machine.

Tips & Warnings

• Using three laundry hampers for laundry sorting might be easier than using a three compartment hamper because you can carry the entire hamper to the machine when you're ready to wash.
• Be sure to train children to empty the pockets as they're sorting laundry.
• Children should not be sorting laundry unattended. Delicate items can be overlooked and ruined.