My Helpful Organization Tips

Life with young children means toys, books, and more toys are usually living on your floor, your bathroom, your bedroom, and other nooks and crannies. This is normal!

A more organized space means that your children are less likely to become overwhelmed by their toys, and will be more interested to engage in play.

I know how difficult it can be to keep up with housework when you have children, so hopefully these quick organization tips can help!

1. If you can, make a quick trip to your local Dollar Store. You won’t believe how many different tins, baskets, and containers they have to make organization easier (not to mention cost effective).

2. In sections (do what you can with the time that you have), try to organize your children’s toys into categories (cars, dolls, legos, blocks, musical toys, books, puzzles, colouring books, etc).

3. Store each category into one or two bins.

4. Try to section your play room into different areas of play. This is what childcare centres do – they each have sections focused on dramatic play, block play, a creative area for colouring/arts and crafts, a quiet area to read, etc). Store some of those extra toy bins out of your children’s reach/sight.

5. Encourage your children to discover these “new” areas of play that are now more organized.

The Benefits Of Organization:

• Toy organization means that your children will be less overwhelmed by the amount of toys around them. They will be more likely to play for longer periods of time (also teaching them independence).
• Rotate your toys/bins once a month. Your children will show more interest in the “old” toys and will discover new things/colours/shapes etc about them.
• Siblings or friends that play together will have an easier time engaging in social play.
• YOU as the caregiver will be less overstimulated as well. Clean up is also a lot faster this way!

Here are some great products that I’ve found at the Dollar Store with the exception of my wicker baskets (which I found at Michaels).

More natural, wooden/wicker organizers will give your home, play space, and children a Montessori experience. Keep this in mind when thinking about the type of room/experience that you would like to give to your children at home.

My home is full of both wooden/natural organizers, pastels, and neutral colours. My son who will be turning four this year is all about bright green everything, so I tried to look for organizers that would also peak his interests!

Let’s start off with the clear bins – I love to put cars or action figures in the larger clear bins so that my preschooler (and myself of course) can see what’s inside. When I rotate the toys, this is much easier for me as I usually don’t have much time to look through our toy bins!

Since my preschooler is really into lego, I thought that purchasing smaller green and blue containers with lids would be perfect for his lego area. I also have a baby so this was a must! It’s important that the lego are out of baby Theodore’s reach.

Clear bins are also perfect for storing arts and craft supplies (paints, stickers, crayons, glue sticks, etc).

These are probably one of my favourite products from my haul – they are supposed to be produce bags but work perfectly for smaller toys! Hot Wheels, loose parts, trains, the possibilities are endless.

Baby Blocks come in so many colours – but pastels seem to catch my little one’s eyes the most. I decided to pair them with a pastel green basket!

I have a bunch of these wicker baskets throughout the house as well. They’re great for storing sight bottles, animals, or blocks as well! They have handles on them so it’s easier for toddlers to take out and discover. These can be found at Michaels and come in different sizes (some also have lids).

Bonus find! My Dollar Store had these letter boards in different colours. Joey is heading into Junior Kindergarten this fall and having this letter board in our play room will definitely help him with his letter recognition!

If you need simple, affordable shelving, I recommend these portable and lightweight shelving units found below (I have the 6 cubes in white). They were easy to put together and are great for storing smaller-medium sized baskets and toys!

Happy Organizing!

TKM

xo