Entries Tagged 'Kids Organizing & Products' ↓

How do you maintain home organization balanced with recreation during the summer months when kids are home from school?  The last day of school is a GREAT day for kids, but it can be a stressful day for moms as we wonder how we will make it all work.  And I’ve heard there are two kinds of moms-the summer moms who are joyful that school is out and they have open days ahead of them.  And then there are the school moms who counts down the days until the first day of school is back in session.   Or maybe there’s a middle mom too.  But all types of moms still have things to get done while kids are home from school. 

Here are a few easy organizing tips to help you get through the summer:

• Keep a list in a folder of upcoming summer events & ideas in your area to choose from:  Library events, library summer reading programs, concerts in the park, easy hikes, petting zoo, swim schedules, etc. 
• Be prepared for fun at home for the kids while you get a few things done inside.  Create an outdoor toy bucket or bin filled with water balloons,  bubbles, sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, paint brushes for buckets of water (for some reason painting on stuff just with water is fun for kids).
• Keep sunscreen ready by the door the kids go out each day.
• Each day assign someone a chore, you shouldn’t have to do it all yourself. 
• Have a list of sitters and phone numbers at the ready, you can even have a younger sitter act as a mother’s helper to entertain the kids while you are at home.
• Take some time every day with your kids so they are getting the attention they need-a little bit goes a long way.  Heading to the beach and getting away from it all can be rejuvenating for you and help you be more productive later as well.
• Older kids may be willing to earn some money doing some work for you while they are home as well-let them.

Whether the months of summer are too long or whether they are too short for you, you can be prepared and organized for some fun as well as for getting things done.

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What a great mom moment I got to enjoy the other day.  And when you are a mom, you really do have to appreciate those moments!  They are often fleeting.  I had a good reminder that kids really can learn how to declutter and organize too.  It’s not going to happen overnight.  It’s going to take a lot of patience.  It’s going to take being a good example.  It’s going to take making it as easy as possible for them to succeed.

I have a folding table from Costco in my office for projects that I am working on and for items that are on their way to leaving our house.  Under that table I keep a big bin available at all times for donation items.  The other day, I was in my office and I noticed a couple of shirts had been placed in the bag from one of my kids. Granted, not actually in the bag, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.  What was great about it was that I realized my daughter had come across a couple of things that weren’t working for her anymore and automatically placed them in/on the bag to part with them.  She was decluttering on her own!  No lecture from mom; woo hoo!

If you make it easy and you stay consistent, you can teach your kids how to let go of items to make room for new items and to create space.  Does this mean my kids have perfect rooms?  OH HECK NO!  But they are learning lessons that they can take with them into adulthood and use in their own homes at their comfort level.  Don’t give up, kids can learn to organize too!

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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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