Teaching Children that Organizing Can Be Fun

Teaching children to be organized can sometimes be quite challenging. This is often because children enjoy activities that are fun, and organization tasks can seem quite tedious and boring to them. One of the secrets to getting your children organized is to teach them fun organization techniques that will make them excited about staying organized.

Fun Containers Make Organizing Fast and Easy

Part of the problem that children encounter when trying to stay organized is that the boxes and containers that toys come in don't lend themselves to good organizational strategies. For example, the cardboard box that some toys come in can easily become broken and bent, and as a result, toys spill everywhere. Instead, find containers in fun colors that are a good match for the toys your children play with and match the container to way that the toys are used. For example, since toys such as blocks and building materials are often carried to a spot on the floor for play, store them in a plastic bin that has wheels. Or, put a plastic container in a small plastic toy wagon so that the entire container can be pulled to the play area, then returned to storage when play time is over with. Art supplies such as crayons, markers and colored pencils are commonly sold in flimsy cardboard boxes which break. Instead, use clear plastic shoe boxes or pencil boxes to store these kinds of materials. Art totes that have multiple compartments and a handle can also be a great way to store art supplies such as glue, scissors and rulers, so that your child only has to carry the tote from the closet or shelf to the table and back. By making the containers suit the needs of the toy and by making them fun, the organization of play materials will become second-nature to your child.

Use Shelves Instead of Toy Boxes

Toy boxes have always been a classic for storing children toys and yet they are almost always the most inefficient way of storing toys. Toys can get separated and buried at the bottom of a toy box, which causes the child to have to dump the toy box just to get to the toy they want. This of course makes a mess, which is definitely not fun for any child to clean up. Instead of dumping toys into a toy box, provide your child with shelves, bins, bookcases and other toy storage areas that will allow them to store toys neatly while being able to clearly see and easily grab just the toy they want. If you make it easier for your child to keep their toys organized, they will tend to put them back more often. Toys will also get played with more frequently instead of being buried and forgotten at the bottom of the toy box.

Promote a Clean Up Time

One way of helping your child stay organized is to set aside fifteen minutes each day for a "clean up time." Try to make the experience fun for your child, such as putting on a favorite record, or maybe play-acting while putting the toys away. You can even set a good example by doing housework during the same fifteen minutes, so that both of you are cleaning at the same time. By doing a little bit of cleaning every day, things will never get too messy.