The playgroup where I bring my 2 kiddos to since early this month have this nice system for their toys arrangement/placement. Each toys are placed in their respective containers in their respective spots in the book shelves.
When a child takes a toy to play, they can only play 1 toy at a time. It takes a while for my 2 kiddos to get used to this as they have been playing more than 1 toys at a time and to be told suddenly they can only play 1 toy at a time, to return it back to its place before they can play another toy takes a little bit time to get used to. But within half hour, they got the message. One toy at a time. Neat!
I like the idea that a child must always returned back the toy they finished playing with by following and matching the stickers on the toy's containers and its spot in the shelves. According to one of my FB page follower (Miss Jennifer Dansberger Jones who worked in a preschool for years), she said that "the labeling system was mandatory for 2 reasons, 1) easy clean up and identification 2) pre-reading skills -matching, observation, and (we labeled with the word and picture for word/object association. I feel children should have more art supplies available, and manipulatives ( puzzles, sorting beads,etc.) any problem solving and fine activities- because children are lacking those skills."
So yes, I am so going to do this to our home as well! Picture below taken on 13th Sept 2013, bought 5 cloth boxes from Ikea (after making sure it fits our Expedit bookcase) and reorganize all toys and books in our room into the appropriate boxes with labelling (words and pictures). Still pending: need to tidy up the wires and cables dangling at the back and probably fill up the rest of the shelves with the blue cloth boxes as well hehehehe...
I hope I will be able to train my kiddos to organise and clean up the toys according to the correct boxes and by matching the labels to the boxes. Wish us luck!!!
**Personal notes: Apologies but due to my paranoia of privacy and security of myself, my family and my kiddos, I am not going to reveal what is the SAHM group I'm in, the playgroup name, the area and so on. Apologies but like I said, I am really paranoid and with info like this being shown in public, I hope you can understand my reasons for doing so.
