Entries Tagged 'Kids Organizing & Products' ↓

How can you stay organized for the cold, winter months?  Here in the northwest, we’ve already had some pretty darn cold days and yes, of course the rain!  I keep it simple to contain all those items the family needs for the cold:  hats, scarves, gloves and snow pants.  I purchased a tall organizing bin with individual drawers that pull out.  The first four drawers are not very deep and the bottom three are deeper. 

Each shallow drawer has a family member’s name on it from my label machine:  in go the gloves & hats.  Each person just has to go to their own drawer and pull out what they need.  The bottom three hold scarves which are bulkier and take up more room as well as snow pants.  This is all contained outside in the garage right by the garage door on the way to the car.  Along comes a cold day or a snow day and one only has to stop by the drawer on the way to the car or outside to play and grab what they need. 

Stay organized and stay warm this winter!

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Home organization can be a struggle when you have a family.  From the time we bring our first baby home, we also bring home lots of equipment to go with them!  Amazing how much such a little, tiny person needs!  And that doesn’t seem to change as the years go by:  toys, clothes, sports equipment, electronics, on & on…

It may be a struggle, but I’m here to say it’s also manageable; there’s definitely hope!  I will share with you a few tips to help you in your own home to help your kids succeed.

1. Be sure to be a good example for your kids.  They need to see you working at being organized as well.  They need to learn the skills from you.
2. Place items at kid level so they can do it themselves.  Hooks for coats and backpacks-keep ‘em low.  
3. Make it easy for kids to put away coats and backpacks by placing hooks close to the door they enter.  Don’t expect kids to go all the way to their rooms to put away coats and backpacks.  Would you go all the way to your room to hang your coat and purse?
4. Simply explain and show kids where things go.
5.  Use labels on the outside of bins and baskets so kids know where to put things back.  Use pictures if they can’t read yet.
6. Be consistent.  This isn’t important to kids, you have to keep encouraging them to do what you want them to do.  You are teaching them life skills here.

Be a good example, work together, be consistent and be on your way to enjoying home organization!

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Keeping track of homework can prove to be a home organization struggle for parents and kids alike.   Which of course leads to stress-ick, who needs it?  At our house we use the tiered stacker above.  Each child has their own shelf complete with a label with their name on it-but of course!  I found out what a struggle people can have with homework when my best friend came to me one day.  One day one of her twins had set his homework down on her desk and it got mixed in with her papers.  At the last minute they had a frantic search to find his homework.  That’s no fun.  I had her get the tiered stackers and solved that problem!  Sometimes it’s really that simple!

When you use the stacker it’s important to remember the following:

• Label each tier with each child’s name
• Use for homework only-no coloring books, no art projects, no miscellaneous papers
• Place homework back on the stacker if it’s not done
• Take homework from the stacker and place in backpacks the night before, no stress in the morning-yipee!

Another great way to deal with homework is to create a caddy with supplies.  A caddy is mobile if your child wants to lay on the floor one day, work at the kitchen table another day or head on up to their room.  Items to stock in the caddy:

• Glue sticks
• Pens & pencils
• Erasers
• Ruler
• Markers
• Crayons
• Tape
• Scissors
• Anything else helpful you might think of!

Keep homework organized, keep stress levels down and check off one more task that gets you closer to your home organization goals!

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Home organization is possible even when it come to toys-lots and lots of toys!  You just have to have the right tools and know what you should stay away from.  My advice is to stay away from the black hole-the toy box.  Or at least use it in the best way possible.  When it comes to toy boxes they usually end up turning into a dumping ground.  Throw everything in to clear the floor and suddenly everything is just a jumbled mess.  All the different toy parts are all mixed up, filter down to the bottom and your kids never dive back in to find what they want to play with.  They probably don’t even know what’s in there anymore anyway. 

If you already have a toy box and you at least want to get some use out of it, then try these ideas:

• First, make sure it has a safe lid that won’t come crashing down on heads and fingers.
• Store larger toys inside such as balls, bats & outdoor toys.  This could be stored out in the garage.
• Use it for shoe storage.
• Use it for extra bedding and blankets.
• Use it for bulky winter clothing such as snow suits, scarves and hats.
• Try storing out of season clothing.  Switch it out when the new season rolls around.
• Store clothing that your child still has to grow into.
• Store toys in individual bins with clear labels and then store the bins inside the toy box.

If you must use a toy box, use it to your best advantage for keeping your kids organized!

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Oh, all those wonderful painted pictures, colorful drawings and collages our kids create!  Creativity is a wonderful and amazing thing and it’s so fun to see what our kids come up with, especially if you’re not particularly creative such as myself.  But there needs to be some balance between creativity gone wild and home organization.  Usually what I see in people’s homes is that they just have waaaaay to much of every type of art supply that their kids are using.  Bags of crayons, tubs of markers, oodles of colored pencils, glue sticks galore, oh my. 

Here’s a few ways to tame the art supply monster:

• Really, just keep a reasonable amount.  Your kids can color with one big box of new crayons; they really don’t need 500.
• Throw out broken crayons.  Really, you have a lot.
• Make sure all the markers still work-your kids can help with this one.  Out go the dried out ones!
• Bag up all the excess supplies and donate them.
• Bag up all the excess and store as a back-up and stop buying new items.  Only do this if you have room to store it.
• Create an art caddy like the photo above.  You will have just what your kids need right at their fingertips, it will be mobile and it forces you to choose just the best items because there is a cap on how much you can add to the caddy.

Keep your art supply stock reasonable, keep your kid’s creative juices flowing and keep a handle on your home organization goals.

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When you’ve got little artists at home, you’ve got lots of paper and coloring books to round up!   Home organization can be very easy and inexpensive with this simple organizing tool-a magazine holder.  This is something that you can purchase at any office supply store or even in the office supply section of your local variety store. 

Magazine holders keep coloring books upright and easy for your kids to flip through and see which one looks good at the moment.  Depending on how much you want to see at one time, you can store the magazine holder so you have the open side toward you on the shelf and quickly see what’s inside.  If you don’t want to see so much at once, just turn it the other way so you see the spine and be sure to label it so you can quickly get your hands on the holder that you want. 

You can line up a bunch of them on a bookshelf or counter to separate the different types of art supplies you may have.  Examples:

• Coloring books
• Construction paper
• Graph paper
• Drawing paper
• Tracing paper
• Paint books
• Activity books

Purchase magazine holders for your child’s art supplies so they can quickly be creative and you can enjoy an organized home!

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Watch for my upcoming home organization series on organizing your kids!

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When it comes to my own home organization, I have found 3-ring binders to be an essential tool.  I use notebooks for a variety of organizing needs.  I use heavy duty, clear page protectors in the binders to hold papers, together they are inexpensive and a great way to separate and store important papers or keepsakes.  Here are a few ways that you can use binders in your home:

Recipes.  I took out all those little recipe cards and photocopied them onto full sheets of paper and slid them into page protectors.  I also slide in all those recipes that have been pulled out of magazines.  You can use page dividers to label sections accordingly-Appetizers, Main Dishes, Desserts, etc. 

Kid’s Keepsakes.  Again, you can use page protectors to hold special artwork, awards and photos.  This is a great book for kids to be able to grab and flip through to see their special keepsakes while keeping them protected.

School Photos. I use page dividers to separate my kid’s school photos from year-to-year.  I only display their current photo so when they take new school pictures, I just pull out the photo from the previous year and add it to the binder.  It is fun to flip through and see how much they change from year-to-year!

Three ring binders are a simple and easy way to stay on top of your home organization!

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A crucial part of home organization is maintaining your systems by staying on top of things.  When we have kids at home it is easy for toys, clothes and keepsakes to spread out quickly.  But even our own stuff can spiral out of control quickly.  I had someone tell me once that his family took 3 minutes at the end of every day to get things back in order.  At first 3 minutes doesn’t sound very long.  What can you get done in 3 minutes?  But that’s the beauty of it-everyone only has to pitch in for 3 minutes!

Before you start, make sure everyone knows what they are supposed to take care of.  Then set a timer and go!  Now remember, this is maintenance, it’s not for decluttering and organizing.   When you already have systems in place, then it is easy to restore order. 

Kids don’t like being sent off to go clean up in another room.  This makes it easier by involving parents too as a group effort and not just sending kids off on their own.  It also puts a time limit on the process so it doesn’t feel overwhelming.  You can do anything for 3 minutes!  Use this home organization tip before bed tonight and see just how much your family can accomplish in 3 minutes!

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You can easily organize your house if you have more than one level with something as simple as a basket!  It seems there is always something that needs to go upstairs in our house where the bedrooms and office are located.  Placing a decorative basket on the steps gives those items a temporary home and helps hide them a bit so you notice the basket more than the items inside.  Using a basket with a handle makes it very easy to grab it on your way up and take items to the various rooms they belong in. 

Another benefit of using a basket is that you can just grab it and go around the house quickly looking for items that need to go back to another room.  When my kids were little, often toys would come from their rooms to the downstairs family room.  Sending them in with a basket to clean up and transport toys back upstairs to their rooms came in very handy!

So, pull out one of those baskets you have been saving because you thought you would use it as a gift basket and start using it to keep your house organized!

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