Organization: A place for everything, and everything in it's place

Make clean up a breeze and label drawers and shelves. Rubbermaid clear drawers and shelves with baskets work well to hold toys as long as they are labeled as to what belongs.

Make labels in a Word document writing the word in a large font and using actual photos of the toys or clip art pictures of the toys to help represent what needs to be placed in each drawer. Laminate the paper label with clear contact paper and tape onto the drawer. It doesn’t take long to make the labels and they save time during clean-up.

Sort through toys on a regular basis to eliminate those that are broken and need repair, missing pieces and need to be tossed out, or not played with and ready to be donated.

Hang hats on a hat hanging strip on the back of a door. We have a lot of hats that fill both of the hat hanging strips on the bedroom door.

Utilize all closet space by adding multiple shelves to closet tops and hanging baskets on closet doors. In a coat closet, use the closet baskets to put hats and gloves. If your children are not tall enough to hang up their own coat, add a hanging shelf system (we call each shelf a “coat cubby” ) for the children to stuff their coats and snow pants. This makes clean up, as well as locating coats easier.

Place a hanging shoe rack in the children’s closet to place their shoes and slippers. This makes keeping each pair together easier and allows for a simpler time of finding a matching pair each morning.