The dumping bin
Our homes have suddenly become our everything: classrooms, playgrounds, soccer fields, ballet studios, cafeterias for breakfast/lunch/dinner and many many snacks… all in addition to our regular living, sleeping and play spaces. You may have already known that you have a lot of kids’ stuff in your home, but the current circumstance has likely slapped you in the face with it.
Try not to get overwhelmed. You have a long time to settle in and chip away one piece at a time.
One very simple place to start is with a single bin: the dumping bin.
The dumping bin in my house, captured today, in action (yes, the St. Patrick’s Day crown is still lying around).
The dumping bin
Instead of letting stray toys, papers, and brushes (my kids don’t even use a brush - how did that get in there?!) clutter the house throughout the day - while you’re busy being in that house all day - set up a bin in a central area in your home where you can toss stuff. It would be a silly expectation to keep surfaces bare and uncluttered with little kids in action 24/7; a dumping bin is one way to keep it neater.
Our dining room table is used for many activities beyond dining, especially now, so when meal time rolls around, instead of putting away each pair of dice or lego brick that randomly ended up on the dining room table, I can just dump them in the dumping bin and deal with them later.
When is later?
Later is whenever will work for you. Options include:
at the end of each day
once a week
whenever the bin gets full
when someone is looking for something they can’t find and you realize you needed to sort through the bin already
When later hits, where do I put everything?
More coming soon on toy bin systems. But for now, put the stuff away somewhere it belongs (not just shoved onto another surface somewhere). If you can’t find an appropriate spot for it, it’s okay to leave it in the bin until you get storage systems set up.
This could be a job for the whole family. It will take less than five minutes if you sort through the bin together and each person brings a pile of items to designated spaces. You can make it a fun family challenge by setting a clock and trying to beat the timer.
Bonus tip: solving the paper problem
With all of these online art and drawing classes going on (thanks artists!), there is a lot of extra paper being used in homes with all of these little aspiring Mo Willems and Wendy McNaughtons. My kids have gotten very into Art for Kids Hub and have been producing some really cool (and abundant) work.
Instead of having paper strewn about everywhere, we set up a pile of plain paper to use and a basket for completed work. We can sort through this basket later when there is a critical mass of drawings and they might not feel as compelled to keep every single piece.
More on organizing kids’ artwork coming soon, but in the meantime, how about sending some of these drawings to family or friends? Especially elderly relatives or people who are on their own.
Our dumping bin and paper supplies are centrally located in our house (beautiful artwork by my father-in-law Howard Fussiner).
This is a great time to drop your perfectionism and revel in the now. With that, you can still have systems to keep your space clear and your family sane. Let’s just take it one bin at a time.
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