You know the toy bins I’m talking about. We bought ours at Target thinking this is a practical way for the kids to organize their toys. After a couple months, I realized that JJ (2yo then) does not have the ability to remember that the Turtles go in the small red bucket and the blocks go in the large yellow bucket, etc. So inevitably, the bins would have random stuff in every bin, no matter how much I showed him the “right” way to organize them. Well, duh right? He was 2 years old.
So we came to a solution, we took pictures of the toys that belonged in each bin. Then using contact paper
affixed the picture on the front of the bin. I actually roped JJ (now 4yo) and a babysitter in to help. JJ staged all the toys on the table and took the pictures, I printed the pictures, then JJ and the babysitter cut out the pictures and used contact paper to put them onto the bins.
So the final result is the boys clean up better because they know where things belong. And the added bonus is when friends are over THEY know where things belong even if they’ve never played at our house before.
I would suggest not being a perfectionist about this, I started to and was making it way more complicated then it had to be. It was fun to involve JJ, he really enjoyed it. A friend of mine found Picture Post-It notes that you can do on your computer and the back is sticky – that could be another way. And someday, I want to add the words under the pictures with the hope it will help with word recognition.
Side Note: Really I think these bins are not pretty especially in the primary colors. What’s up with manufacturers thinking that everything “kid” esp. furniture needs to be in primary colors. Ours are in our living room right now and I will be so glad when we have room for them somewhere else!!!! My friend Liz did get another color at Target later that are so much easier on the eyes.
