It is a positive task to teach your children how to be responsible for their own bedrooms.  This is especially true for the younger child.  Children need guidance and support as they learn what it is to be responsible for their toys, clothes and books.

By the time your child is of pre-school age, they are ready to start the simplest of tasks. 

Organizational Storage suggestions for Mom and child:

Where possible, you can use simple everyday household items for storage.  It is yet another teaching moment for you as a parent, recycling and repurposing items around the house teaches your child to live in a ‘green’ world!

Toy Boxes – are great for storing larger toys, stuffies, dress up clothes, games and puzzles.

• Wood boxes with handled lids.  Though there are toy boxes that are made specifically for the storage of toys, there are a myriad of boxes or chests that can be repurposed as a toy box.  Ensure that there are handles so that children can open and close them with ease without the danger of lids closing on their precious little fingers.
• Wicker chests with handled lids.  You can often find fantastic wicker baskets or chests at local thrift shops, garage sales or flea markets.  Check out Walmart or Target for sets of 3, which can be used to store Barbies in one, clothes and accessories in the other two.
• Wicker baskets (if you aren’t fussy about seeing the toys displayed).  There are great for kids as they can see right away what goes where, no fear of lids dropping on the fingers and portable!
• Rubbermaid totes are handy and waterproof, making them useful to take to the beach or lake.  They are useful to store bathtub toys in.
• Sturdy cardboard boxes ie file boxes.  Easily labelled or photos attached to the front so your child can easily identify where their toys go.
• Under bed Rubbermaid storage totes.  Wonderful for storing Barbies or similar sized dolls, along with the Ziplock bags of clothes and accessories.   Washable and portable, easy for your child to pull out or push back under.

Storage Solutions for Smaller Items:

• Ziplock bags – various sizes.  Again, being transparent, easy for you or your child to identify the contents and easy for your child to keep track of special toys.
• Shoesboxes – great way to teach your child about recycling and repurposing!  Photographs or pictures of the items to be stored in the boxes help your child immediately identify where their specific toy or accessory of the moment is.  Easy to stack on each other, they can fit into child level bookcases!
• Clean cookie/biscuit tins – perfect for crayons or felt pens! Polly Pocket accessories, Barbie shoes/hair accessories
•  Clean baby cleaning cloth containers – the snap shut lid is easy to open and close for little hands, stackable and washable!  They are useful for puzzles pieces, crayons, playing cards, flash cards.
• Large ice cream plastic buckets- easy to label, washable, portable (great to take to the beach for toys or sand castle building)
• Clean yogurt or large margarine containers.  Easy to open and close for little hands, stackable and washable.
• Rubbermaid drawer sets.  These come on a wide range of styles, depth of drawers, are washable and portable.  They are easily labelled with photos or pictures of the contents.  They are often on sale at Walmart, Target or even certain big name grocery chains.
• Wicker baskets with built in handles.  For that discriminating child who has inate taste for decor! the baskets can slide into bookcases or shelving units with ease, and being open, items are easily put away, or identifiable for use.

Whatever storage solution you arrive at, ensure that they are all placed at eye level for your child.  This includes dressers and cupboards.  Most closets can be altered to have the hanging rod at the appropriate level for your child to hang up their own clothes. 

Children are very willing to ‘help’, and require your prescence to do this.  Moments shared in the process of cleaning up your child’s room with them, creates a safe and fun atmosphere where you can teach your child about responsibility for the care of their property.  This in turn, lends itself to creating a sense of self-respect for your child, a sense of achievement when the room is cleared of all toys, clothes and books.

If you have any storage solutions that you have found helpful, especially where you are repurposing items, please share your tips with us by commenting below!

OXO

Care

http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Pages/All_Products.aspx

*Thanks to http://www.arthursclipart.org/toys/toyscol/toyscol.htm for the wonderful artwork! oxo

  Moving an active home office can be very stressful if it’s not done with an eye to planning and organization.

If you have already designated a room in your new home for your home office, you’re ahead of the game.  Ensure that all telephone/cable outlets are in good working order, and will be ready for use when you move in.

  It is a good idea to keep the boxes that your PC, printer, and fax machine came in.  If not, you can obtain strong packing boxes from your local moving company, or check with your local computer store – preferably use boxes that have slots for your hands – this makes it more secure as you are moving from one place to another.

As you disconnect each cord, fold and secure with twist tie or elastic, and label.  Keep appropriate cords and connections with each item to avoid frustration later.

   If you do not have a dolly to  move your filing cabinet, it will need to be emptied accordingly into file boxes (available at local Staples or other office supply store). Label the boxes accordingly and ensure that they are not combined with the rest of the household items.

  Wrap all certificates, diplomas and any other framed items (photographs and artwork) in bubble wrap or packing paper.  You can file them into an open box, or lay them flat into a suitably sized box, layering each item as you go to prevent breakage.

You can use file boxes for stationary, writing instruments and any of the smaller items usually found in a home office.

  Magazines, newspapers and books – hopefully you will have sorted through these in the decluttering process. 

If not, then proceed with the decluttering process.  It’s redundant to move that pile of newspapers that you’ve been meaning to get to because there is that one article that you wanted to send to your friend in Iceland, or those pile of magazines because you wanted to cut out recipes or decor ideas.

Go through them all, and recycle whatever you know you aren’t going to bother with.  If you see that article or photograph, rip it out, and place it in a large Kraft envelope, labelling it as recipes to file/articles to send etc.

Magazines can be donated to your doctor’s office or the local hospital.

  Books – this can be a difficult one for book lovers -  I have learned to be especially ruthless about this, yet I continue to have many book filled boxes at each move!

Sort through all books for relativity to your life now.  Return all borrowed books and return all library books.  If there are reference books, where you can just as easily find the information online, then donate the books to your local library or recycling depot where there may be a free bookstore.

Use small to medium sized boxes for packing magazines and books.

Label all boxes, ensure that they are taped shut securely, and are situated in a cool waterproof location until you have time to unpack them.