Article and Photo Courtesy of Organized Christmas
Santa's coming ... will there be room to store new toys?
Adding Santa's bounty to overstuffed kids' rooms is a recipe for
January clutter disaster--and don't even try to tell this Nana to scale back on
presents for the grandchildren. Bah, humbug!
About this time of year, it's a good idea to contemplate the toy situation
in your child's room.
It's a fact of modern life. Children's playthings have exploded in
number, size, and complexity, while children's storage options have remained
static.
Just try storing a Happy Meal collection in the average toy box! Even the
best-organized kid's rooms can easily drown in today's toy avalanche.
And nowhere is the clutter more apparent than at Christmas. Time for a
sneaky/secret/flat-out toy reduction!
To Do Today
Declutter children's toys
For very young children, it's relatively simple. Corral and store
several "big" items like Fisher-Price play sets, and cull the rest.
Come a winter's rainy day, you'll be able to pull out the stored toys, their
magic refreshed by a stay in the attic. Replace them with other toys. You'll cut
clutter in the kids' rooms, and give yourself a welcome "new toy!"
break from time to time.
Older children require more care and thought. Depending on your
household's customs, you can ask for toys for a charity toy drive (being sure
they're safe, complete and in good condition) or point out that Santa can't
leave new toys if there's no room to put them away.
Get the children involved in the solution, and you're ahead of the
game.
Whatever you do, think ahead. You'll need to clear the decks in the
children's play areas before Grandma/Santa arrives, later this month!
To Read Today
Need more help organizing children's rooms?
Eight Great Tips to Organize
Kids' Rooms
It's the battle cry of millions of parents: "Clean your
room!" Will it ring out in your house today?
Seasonal events like birthdays, the holidays or a new school year bring
fresh motivation to the drive to get kids organized--and nowhere is the battleground
more intense than in the children's bedrooms.
How do you help your child organize and clean up life in the bedroom?
Try these eight easy organization strategies to calm clutter and bring
order to kids' rooms.
Take a child's eye view
Get down to your child's eye level to help him or her get organized.
Look at your child's space, storage, furniture and possessions from his or her
vantage point. The view may surprise you!
Adult furniture and organizing systems don't translate well to children's
needs. Sticky dresser drawers are hard for small hands to manage. Folding
closet doors pinch fingers and jump their rails when pushed from the bottom.
Closet hanging rods are out of reach, while adult hangers don't fit smaller
clothing. Traditional toy boxes house a tangled jumble of mixed and scattered
toy parts.
To organize a child's room, solutions must fit the child. For younger
children, remove closet doors entirely. Lower clothing rods and invest in
child-sized hangers. Use floor-level open containers to hold toys, open plastic
baskets to store socks and underwear.
Devise a simple daily checklist for maintenance. To organize a child's
room, tailor the effort to the child.
Bring the child into the process
Resist the urge to wade into the mess alone, garbage bags flying.
Gritted teeth and threats of "You will keep this room clean!" don't
touch the root of the problem: teaching children organization skills and
maintenance methods.
Instead, look at the organization process as a learning activity, and
put the focus on the child. Professional organizer Julie Morgenstern, author of
Organizing from the Inside Out, recommends that you view your role as that of
organizational consultant to your child.
As his or her guide, survey what's working, what's not, what's
important to the child, what's causing the problems, and why the child wants to
get organized.
Partnered with your child, you stand a better chance of devising an
organization scheme and system that makes sense to him or her. If they're
involved in the effort, children are better able to understand the
organizational logic and maintain an organized room.
Sort, store and simplify
It's a conundrum! Children's rooms are usually small, often shared, and
generally lack built-in storage. Yet these rooms are host to out-of-season and
outgrown clothing, surplus toys, and even household overflow from other rooms.
Kids can't stay organized when the closet is crammed, the drawers are stuffed,
and playthings cover each square inch of carpet.
The solution: sort, store and
simplify.
Begin with clothing: sort it out! Store out-of-season or outgrown
clothing elsewhere.
Finally, simplify! Does your son really wear all 27 T-shirts crowding
his drawer? Remove the extras so the remainder can stay neat and orderly in the
available space.
For younger children, a toy library is the answer to over-abundant
toys. Using a large lidded plastic storage container, large box or even plastic
garbage bag, entrust a selection of toys to the "toy library." Store
the container in an out-of-the way place for several months.
Some rainy day, bring out the toy library, swapping the stored toys for
other playthings that have lost their savor. The stored toys will have regained
their interest and freshness--and they won't have been underfoot in the child's
room.
Older kids can utilize higher closet shelves to "store" some
of their belongings. Clear plastic shoebox storage containers hold little
pieces and identify the contents.
Contain, corral and control
Toy boxes and open shelves are no place to store children's
possessions, particularly those involving many tiny parts. To organize toys,
think "contain, corral and control."
Contain toys and other belongings before you store. Use plastic shoebox
containers for smaller toys (Barbie clothes, Happy Meal give-aways), larger
lidded bins for blocks, trucks and cars, light-weight cardboard records boxes
for stuffed animals. Use specialty organizers to corral magazines and comic
books, video games, or CDs and cassette tapes.
A bonus: containers help parents control the number of toys out at any
one time: "Sure, you can play with the farm set, just as soon as the
Matchbox cars go back into their home!"
Make it easier to put away, harder to get out
The premier rule for efficient children's storage? Make it easier to
put something away than it is to get it out.
For example, store picture books as a flip-file, standing upright in a
plastic dishpan. The child flips through the books, makes his selection, and
tosses the book in the front of the dishpan when he's done.
Compare a traditional bookcase, where little fingers can pull down a
whole shelf faster than they can replace one book. Build the effort into the
getting out, not the putting away.
Organize bottom to top
Befitting a child's shorter stature, start organizing from the bottom
of the room, and work to the top. Most used toys and belongings should live on
lower shelves, in lower drawers, or on the floor. Higher levels are designated
for less-frequently-used possessions.
Working bottom to top, the best-loved teddy bear sits in a small rocker
on the floor, while the extensive Grandma-driven bear collection is displayed
on a shelf built 6 feet up the wall.
Label, label, label
When it comes to keeping kids' rooms organized for the long haul,
labels save the day!
Use a computer printer to make simple graphic labels for young
children. Pictures of socks, shirts, dolls or blocks help remind the child
where these items belong. Enhance reading skills for older children by using
large-type word labels.
Slap labels everywhere: inside and outside of drawers, on shelf edges
and on the plastic shoebox storage containers that belong there, on boxes and
bookcases and filing cubes.
Playing "match the label" can be fun--and turns toy pickup
into a game.
Build a maintenance routine
The usual peaks and valleys approach to room cleaning can vex and
frustrate children. Their room is clean, they play, and suddenly, their room is
back to messy normal.
Help children stop the cycle by building maintenance routines into the
family's day.
"Morning Pickup" straightens the comforter, returns the
pillow to the bed, and gets yesterday's clothing to the laundry hamper.
"Evening Pickup" precedes dressing for bed, and involves
putting away the day's toys.
Building routines into the family's schedule will keep disorder from
becoming overwhelming. Tap them today in your organized home!
Today's Recipe
Kissmas whisk
We Whisk You a Merry Kissmas? This easy-to-make stocking stuffer is
simple and sweet: a perfect gift for Secret Santa exchanges or office gifts.
Make our Merry Kissmas Whisks with free printable gift tags to speed
the job.
We Whisk You A Merry Kissmas
Ready to share Yuletide greetings ... with a clever twist? This
"We Whisk You A Merry Kissmas" stocking stuffer is a sweet surprise
for the chocolate lover in your life!
A homemade Christmas gift, a "Kissmas Whisk" is easy enough
for children to make and give--and with ingredients from the dollar store, it's
inexpensive to make.
Makes a great teacher gift, stocking stuffer or office Secret Santa
present.
Materials
Small kitchen whisk
Chocolate kiss candies
Plastic food storage wrap
Printable gift tag
Directions
To make your "Kissmas Whisk", place a handful of foil-wrapped
chocolate kiss candies between the tines of a new kitchen whisk.
To secure the candies, wrap whisk bottom with plastic food storage wrap
and tape the wrap to the whisk handle.
Add a pretty bow or ribbon, and attach a free printable "Kissmas
Whisk" for a simple stocking stuffer or 12 Days of Christmas gift!
