Clean my room checklist with pictures: free printable

Who it’s for

Children and teens who freeze, wander off or give up when they hear “clean your room”: the job is too big to know where to start. That includes many autistic children and children with ADHD, and children who don’t speak or don’t speak much, who can’t ask “What do I do first?” A checklist breaks the room into jobs small enough to finish.

How to use it

1. Clean the room together the first few times. Point to each picture before the job and tick it after: “Number one, make my bed. Done!”
2. Cross out what doesn’t apply. No toy box? Write in “toys in the basket”. Fewer jobs is fine, especially at first.
3. Hang the checklist on the bedroom door, at your child’s eye level, where it’s seen on the way in.
4. Teach one job at a time until your child can do it alone, then step back from that one and keep helping with the rest.
5. Keep the order the same. Bed first clears a big space, so the room looks better straight away.

Where does it go?

Many children don’t clean up because they don’t know where things belong. Page 2 matches each thing to its place: dirty clothes to the hamper, toys to the toy box, books to the shelf, trash to the trash can, shoes to the closet, cups to the kitchen. Take photos of your own hamper and shelf and glue them over the pictures, so they look like your child’s room. While you clean, point to where does it go? and wait, so your child can answer by pointing too.

The same checklist in the schedule maker

The checklist is also a routine in the free visual schedule maker. Open “Clean my room” in the schedule maker to take a step out, add a photo of your own bedroom, or change the words, then print it.

What’s on the PDF

Clean my room

• make my bed
• clothes in the hamper
• clean clothes away
• toys in the toy box
• books on the shelf
• shoes away
• trash in the trash can
• cups to the kitchen

Make my bed

• pillow off
• pull up the covers
• smooth it flat
• pillow on top

Where does it go?

• dirty clothes
• hamper
• toys
• toy box
• books
• shelf
• trash
• trash can
• shoes
• closet
• cups
• kitchen

Talk while we clean

• help
• where does it go?
• messy
• a break
• I did it!
• all done

Printing tips

• Laminate the checklist, or slide it into a sheet protector, and tick with a dry-erase marker so it wipes clean for next time.
• Print page 2 twice: cut the “where does it go?” pictures from one copy and tape them on the real hamper, toy box and shelf.
• For jobs around the rest of the house, use the chore chart with pictures; for the end of the day, the bedtime routine chart; and for one hard moment, the first-then board.
• More about schedules and checklists: five visual supports to use at home, and setting up AAC room by room.