Mommy Monday: organizing toys for preschoolers

As I shared with you last week, I recently re-organized my preschool-aged girls' clothes closet to make it easier for them to dress themselves and put laundry away. I also finally put away all of their diaper supplies (now that they've been fully trained for many months!). In that process, I managed to clear out an entire closet (a small one in their bedroom), and I knew I wanted to move some of their toys into that space. Today I'll be sharing my new setup for all of their toys- I'm pretty excited about how much easier it will be for the girls to use their own toys!

So before I re-organized the toys, diaper supplies, and clothes, the closet in the girls' room looked like this:

And the main toy storage area in the living room looked like this (see my previous post explaining this and other toy storage ideas here):

I love using bins to store toys- easy cleanup, attractive, and easy to find what you need- but a few of the bins were getting overcrowded and, therefore, underused. I also had started to accumulate more and more toys on top of the shelves (even more than you see in the pictures above), which was unsightly and difficult for the girls to reach.

The two worst bins were the stuffed animals and the costumes. Especially the costumes. The girls have grown more and more interested in pretend play, and when they do manage to find what they want, they LOVE wearing all of the fun costumes we have. The problem was that the bin where I kept the costumes was chock-full!

(Yes, there are costumes under there... this is what I'm telling you. It was a problem.)

Although I was hoping to keep the costumes in a place where the girls could reach them on their own, I decided it was better and more accessible if I hung up all of the costumes in their closet, and put the accessories (hats, tools, jewelry etc) that go with the costumes in another bin in the same closet.

The girls won't be able to reach the hanging costumes on their own, but they will be able to see them all more easily and, I think, be more likely to use them- especially since they can pull out the accessories on their own easily. And if they dump a costume or two in the bin from time to time I won't complain :)

The other problem area was the stuffed animals. The girls don't honestly use them very often- they are more interested in the smaller figurines and baby dolls- but they do occasionally pull them out, and I myself really love them (shh, don't tell!) because many of them are my old toys. I got this hanging storage from IKEA and hung it from the hanging rod next to the costumes:

To be honest, if the girls played with the stuffed animals a lot, I probably would not use this system. It's not as easy to take things in and out of the bins as I thought, and because it's so long, you have to hang it pretty high to be able to use all of the bins (I actually have one that is not being used because it is squished against the floor as it is), making it impossible for children to access all of them. Still, for something that doesn't get used a ton, it works well. Again, I think it is easier for the girls to see the toys, and therefore encourage and inspire them to use them more often!

Here's what the closet looks like now, with the costumes and stuffed animals stored inside:

With the two biggest bins completely empty in the living room toy storage shelves, I got to do some re-organizing there as well!

The biggest thing I was able to do was to move 2 bins off of the top of the unit and into the shelves. I moved some toys from other bins into the large wicker ones that I had just emptied:

Then I had space to move some of the other toys that were haphazardly sitting on other shelves or in other smaller bins into the ones that those came from, including putting several tinkering/crafting toys that I had spread out around the room into one canvas bin:

SO much better, you guys!!! The tea set in the purple bin was one of their favorite toys, but it had sadly been practically forgotten in a mismatched bin full of odds and ends (like playdough and alphabet blocks). I bet it will get a lot of use now that it is paired with another favorite that is a more logical combination- the birthday cake!

I hope you got some new ideas for organizing preschoolers' toys, or at least some inspiration to tackle your current system and give it a fresh start! The whole process didn't take very long once I figured out where I wanted things to go, but everything seems much less cluttered now than it was before!

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Fermata Fridays: August 6, 2015

Welcome to this week's installment of my weekly linky party, Fermata Fridays! This is a chance for music education bloggers to share blog posts with readers and bloggers alike, so we can all mingle and learn from each other. Readers, you are going to love all of the awesome blog posts that are out there- I hope you discover some new blogs to follow and get some new inspiration for your teaching! Bloggers, make sure you read the directions carefully before linking up to make sure we keep the party fun for everyone. Thanks! :)

Here are the rules for the linky party:

1. Add the linky image to your blog post, blog sidebar, linky party roundup, or other similar location on your blog and link it back to the party. Copy and paste the code for this button, or use the image above and link to the label "Fermata Fridays".

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://caldwellorganizedchaos.blogspot.com/search/label/Fermata%20Fridays"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD5AShYQiAk-NC2PM5EMpGrK31c3bfaUO7qbi6cCVXVIW-ySfO3xfYbJOj0WAbRcl11hVrCCWLIiqFjqs2cV8Yu8Zw-HEdtId-jZRpwv-W6p9VwBWQZvreaxjOfVBwlw-YdvMr_BbR3M0/s1600/fermata+friday+button.jpg" /></a></div><br />

2. Add up to two blog post links to the linky. The posts can be old or new (but no posts that have already been linked up to Fermata Fridays in the past), on any topic related to music teaching, but must not be primarily featuring a product. It's fine to have a link to a relevant product within a post, but that should not be the primary focus of the post. I reserve the right to delete a link that is too product-focused. If you're not sure, just ask! :)

3. Leave a thoughtful comment on at least two other links, including the one right before yours. Add #fermatafridays to your comment so bloggers know where you found them!

4. Pin at least one other link to one of your Pinterest boards.

5. Make sure you are following me on Pinterest. I will be pinning every link to the Fermata Fridays board each week.

6. Make sure you are following me on Facebook and check back next Friday- I will be featuring one of the links from the previous week's linky on my Facebook page each Friday!

The linky will be open every Friday starting at 4:00am EST and will be open for links all day.

An InLinkz Link-up

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Teacher Tuesday: getting rid of my teacher desk

I am so excited, you guys- it's done!

I have been wishing I could get rid of this monstrosity ever since I came into this classroom 2 years ago, but it has taken me this long to finally get up the courage and do some tetris maneuvering to make it happen!

While my teacher desk is a great desk, it is just so big. I love doing movement activities and the more open space I can get in my room, the better. Although I had already pushed it up against the wall when I moved into the room, it took up enough wall space that it left no room to put the piano against a convenient wall- which meant that the piano stuck out sideways into the room, cutting off the space. In many ways it was a fine arrangement, but I was getting frustrated with the number of times that I wanted to be able to see over the piano from one side of the room to the other and couldn't.

As you can imagine, with all of that awesome drawer space, I had a lot of stuff in there. And then there is that amazingly-deep desktop:

Yep, it was COVERED.

So where did all that stuff go, you ask? Well, it actually got split up into 4 different locations.

The first location was the trash can. I went through and ruthlessly threw away anything that I hadn't used in the last 2 years and knew I wouldn't use in the next 5 either, no matter how I thought someone someday might think it's cool.

Then, having cleaned out my closet quite a bit at the end of the school year, I laid out the manipulatives and other class materials that I use fairly regularly on one of the big shelves in the closet:

I organized everything by type and activity and laid it out across the shelf so I could quickly grab what I needed.

I also put some things in the other rather-large-furniture-item in the room: the speaker cart.

When I came into this classroom 2 years ago the bottom cabinet under the speakers was filled with CDs, cassettes, records, and VHS tapes. Yes, you read that right. One of my first tasks a year ago, after confirming that there was indeed nobody still using records, cassettes, or VHS tapes, was to throw out most of it (don't worry, I kept most of the records in a box in the back corner of my closet for nostalgia's sake (and in case I want to do a unit on the progression of music technology or something), and I kept any VHS tapes that were quality material and in good condition). Then I closed the doors on that wonderfully empty cabinet and forgot that I had all of that space for the next year! Thankfully I remembered while I was in the middle of trying to fit all of the stuff from my desk into new storage locations, so the office supplies that I use less frequently, like duct tape, extra erasers, K-cups, and the 3-hole-punch, went in there.

I was also able to put a milk crate in the same cabinet to hold all of my files. In the old desk I had lots of papers filed in the filing cabinet drawers, as well as papers in various huge binders, and in piles on my desk. I went through every single paper, threw out a lot (again), and filed the rest in the hanging files, which I moved from the filing cabinet drawer into the milk crate. Much easier!

The last place I put things from my old desk was in my new work area:

I actually already had this desk in this spot. I kept my computer there because the wires for the projector were on that side of the room, and I had my speakers and microphone set up there as well. I got rid of the giant speakers that were there (which were already being held together with masking tape when I came 2 years ago and were barely functioning) and replaced them with one small bluetooth speaker (the sound quality seems just as good and the wires don't fall out!). That freed up some room for me to migrate my supply essentials to this work area- my teacher toolkit, letter sorter (on the floor for now), and some extra pens in clear plastic cups (on top of the toolkit).

I'm sure my new work area will be getting some love in the next few months, but for now I'm just so happy with this new, streamlined works space, and absolutely THRILLED to be rid of the monstrosity that was my old giant teacher desk!

I mean, seriously.

Do you have a giant teacher desk in your room? Or do you use a smaller work space like my new one? How much space does your "teacher stuff' take up in your room?

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Mommy Monday: a closet to promote preschooler independence

I recently made a few tweaks to the girls' closet and I am happy with the way it came out- with preschool starting in about a month (eek!), it's so important that they can put away, select, and put on their clothes by themselves, and it is a huge boost to their self-esteem and independence when they can do so!

On the floor of the closet and on the first shelf, I have several bins. This was the setup of the bins before I started moving things around:

Basically each child has 3 bins- one large one for bottoms and another large one for tops, and one small one for underwear. The small blue bin holds their socks (the one thing that I make them share!). One of the main things that needed to change was that they were constantly asking to wear socks, even though it's summer, because they saw them when they went to get out their other clothes for the day. The bigger problem, however, was in another closet:

Their main closet is in the hallway (so I can get to it while they're sleeping if I need to), but the small closet in their bedroom had all of their dresses as well. When they were younger it made sense because the bottom of that closet was taken up with diaper supplies, and they didn't really wear dresses unless they were going to church. Now that we are done with diapers, I'm clearing out the bottom space in that closet, and the girls are wearing more dresses during the week- which would be fine except that they can't reach the hanging rod in their bedroom closet! Time for some changes.

I first had to remove half of one of the shelves- thankfully I have these nifty shelves that are made with two boards that are each halfway-deep, so it was easy to take out one section once I weeded out some of the extra clothes I had sitting there. I got a $2 tension rod at Walmart and hung it in the space where the shelf used to be, and voila! A place for their dresses with their other clothes that they can reach! I also moved the sock bin up a shelf, so hopefully the girls won't be so tempted by them :) It actually was helpful to move the bin anyway, since the sides of the shelves are partially hidden by the dresses. 

Because of the way their closet is set up, the girls can sort and put away their own laundry and pick out their own clothes all by themselves. If you've spent any time with preschoolers, you know that anything that ends with "all by themselves" is a wonderful thing! How do you organize your preschooler's clothes? Share your thoughts and ideas below!

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