Possible Solution—part 2

Here is the original post.

I didn’t realize when I posted the original that this would be a 2 parter, however now that I am into it, it may be even more.

I am trying to organize for Tot School, in order to better utilize the items we have. You see, I am a bit of a shopaholic. I don’t obsessively buy anything for myself per-say, but I buy crazy amounts of stuff for the kids. I did the same when I was teaching, and now that I am home I have accumulated tons of stuff for activities with the boys.

Our formal living room is now our playroom/totschool room. I have tried and tried to come up with a workable solution and so far I am getting there.

I have pretty much reorganized the playroom. I am trying to reorder it into centers or areas.

I removed the shelves from this area, now this is our song/magnet area.

 

Because I took away the shelves (to be used in organizing a closet, you’ll see pictures of that in a post soon. I needed a place to put just 4 toys for Alligator. I cleared out 4 spaces in our existing shelving unit for these trays. These are toys that he can play with independently. They will be rotated at least weekly, if not sooner. I have 4 Tot trays on them. As you can see, he jumped right into these toys. You can’t see it, but he is playing with his Tag Junior.

As I said in my previous post. I can’t have out activities that I want to supervise Alligator with. So those activities that I want to work with him on in the coming days will be in the green drawers  you can see in this picture. This is our Art area. You can also see our Karaoke machine. It was a gift to me a few years before we had kids, I love it. But it is also great for the kids to try to sing along with music (we have a wiggles karaoke that is a huge hit), or to just vocalize.

Just to the right of this picture is a couch, but under it is a storage bin (the bottom of the couch is open and I found bins that fit under it perfectly, almost like a giant drawer). It houses our musical instruments, which is a huge hit.

I cleared out another area for our Little people sets.

This is the most comfortable chair we have in the house. I put a little bin of books. Alligator loves to sit on my lap and read books. He will say “mama” and point to the chair so I’ll sit with him. It is so wonderful to snuggle with him!

     

As another part of the organization I am working on setting up a closet in our guest room to house all of my learning materials. I am going to organize them so they are easy to use.

Here is the closet before I pulled everything out:

I already have everything out, and the new shelving unit placed in it. Now I just need to organize.

I took a trunk full of clothes and stuff from this closet to the goodwill this morning, I am sure there is more to go!

I also plan on making a list of activities for his trays and activities for his and Monkey’s drawer so that I can remember what we have, and remember to use it. Those will be in posts to come.

Linked to totschool….