I need so ideas on how I can try and keep my sons room at least half way orginized and clean. He is very good helping when I tell hom it is time to clean, he is only 2. I would like get get it so not everything is thrown into the toy box because when we go to play with his blocks than we need to dig to the bottom which just create a new mess in it shelf any ideas would be great.
Plastic containers with drawers work great. They come in different sizes and you can find them at Walmart, Target, K-Mart...etc. I use them to seperate matchbox cars, small army men, and other toys that may get lost at the bottom of the toybox. I also use the smaller containers for organizing my bathroom cabinet...they work great. Hope this helps.
Ha!
This is funny cause I just posted this link to the response "above" yours. It seems it might be great for you too!
http://www.target.com/Whitmor-Kids%E2%80%99-12-Bin-Organi...
If it's small enough to fit in the bins but the bins are full we know it's time to weed out toys. This has been a lifesaver with playing with legos, picking out books, and playing with blocks or cars. Good luck!
My son had a zillion toys and he just seemed overwhelmed with all the stuff, so we really pared it down to basics.
I find that the fewer toys my son has, the cleaner his room stays.
Plus, with fewer toys, he finds more creative ways to play with everyday items, like a cardboard box and wadded newspapers, or a HotWheels car and a wrapping paper tube.
What I considered "basic" toys that we kept:
HotWheels cars
wooden blocks & duplo blocks
markers and paper
one bin full of his "guys" (stuffed animals)
assorted size balls
puzzles
I love the suggestions you've gotten so far, I just suggest paring down the collection before you use the ideas. That's my 2 cents anyways.
Get some 3-foot high bookshelves and anchor them to the wall (so he can't pull them down on himself). Then, get some baskets that will fit on the shelves, and put all the blocks in one, all the action figures in one, all the stuffed animals in one, etc. He'll be able to find what he's after quickly, and he'll be learning how to sort things at the same time. Also, go through everything. If it's broken, he doesn't play with it, you hate it, he's too old for it etc. get it out of your house.
What we have done is to have clear totes for each "kind" of toy. IE-Legos have their own, superheros, dinosaurs...etc. And since they are clear, he has always been able to see what goes where, and what he wants to play with. Plus, we started a rule of only one tote at a time. Then when he is done, he picks them up and gets out a new tote. Granted, we don't ALWAYS stick to it, but for the most part we do. Plus we had another child, so we had to allow more than one tote. We do have a toy box, but it just has some odds and ends in it. This system has worked GREAT for us!
The totes I buy are Sterilite from Wal-mart. Clear w/ white lids, med. size(20 Qt.).They stack well on top of each other, and even slide under his bed! Good luck finding a system that works for you!
I love everyone else's ideas and suggestions. I was just thinking that if you can't afford to buy any new containers and baskets, that you might try to find some nice looking, sturdy cardboard boxes. You could decorate the sides with construction paper and/or label them with a computer printout with pictures. Now might be the best time to find such boxes, after Christmas.
I agree that kids can and should learn to pick up after themselves at an early age, but that it should be something that is easy to do and they should be shown how to do it. If it has a place to go, then it is easy to put it there.
My experience is that kids know how to clean up when they can visibly see where the items go. I have colored bins and associate them with a set of items, ex. red for mcqueen stuff, green for john deere, etc. I have plastic rubber maid shelves (the kind you might buy for a garage) with bins on them. These are great because you can stack them or just have them two levels high. You don't want anyone to try to climb up them. they do not have rough edges, are light, easy to move around and fairly affordable.
I also keep toys in totes in the garage. We have a small house and not a lot of room. I rotate our toys and they love it. Sometimes I bring a new tote in and let them play with it for the day. Then at the end of the day, we clean up and the tote goes back in the garage. This way my living room does not have to be full of toys all of the time.
I would be careful about putting a lot of toys in a bedroom. Toys tend to be too much stimulation. I have only kept books and stuffed animals in my childnren's room.
This makes bedtime easier. Try to organize a playroom for your child. Even a corner of the livingroom, where ever you can make space for an area just for them. THey will learn to clean up if they know where the things go. I don't like toy boxes either. We have ours filled with puppets only.
Good luck!
K.
One of the things I love for this is labeled bins. Take a picture of what goes in the bin and tape it with packing tape to the outside. Then your child can see what goes where. This is also good for items that go on a shelf - put a picture of the item where it goes (you might as well write the word, too, like "BLOCKS", so your child begins to see the letters and associates them with what they are). A couple of ideas would be to use plastic bins with snapping lids - this can serve 2 fold in that he needs to ask you to open the lid, so if he wants a new one, he has to clean up the first one before you will open the next one - I really like this because it forces kids to pick up before they play with the next thing, so the room doesn't get totally out of control. The downfall is that you have to help - which you may or may not have time for - so think about it. I also love those little cute shelves they sell at Wal.mart or Tar.get. They're a square shelf with 9 openings (3X3). YOu can buy fabric baskets ($5 on sale) to put in them. Get the baskets in all different colors or all the same and label them so again, the toys go back in the basket they came from.
Some ways to re-inforce this is to have a clean-up time before every meal. Tell your child lunch is ready, when your toys are picked up, come and eat. Show and teach him slowly - over a week or so. Then, when he comes to eat, check on the room and put the toys that weren't cleaned up in "timeout" - a basket or high shelf that only you can access. They'll have to stay there until he cleans up. He'll learn - you just have to teach and teach and reinforce and teach some more! It's a lot of work at first, but soon he'll get in the habit and know how to clean up and put everything away.
