A Game for Organizing with the Kids

First, call the kids so that they can watch you dump out all of the plastic containers and lids all over the kitchen floor  - for some reason it is really fun for kids to watch mom/caregiver making a mess......they will squeal with delight.

Next talk with the kiddos about matching - shapes, color, size. Have the children match lids to containers. Hey, may as well make it "educational". 

Place correct lids on the correct containers and make a tower. I encourage the kiddos to try to make a tower taller then me!

Leave containers on the kitchen floor ALL day for two reasons:
1. The kids can come back to play, building more towers throughout the day. This beats any fancy "learning station" found at a daycare/preschool center.
2. By the end of the day I had a grudge against all those containers that I had been stepping over which made it much easier for me to say good bye to my "abundance".

Background are the "lid holders"

Organizing "likes with likes" and stacking, or nesting, biggest to smallest (I know, this seems like an obvious statement but I've learned that this isn't obvious to everyone. :)  In the past I have used one big container which had lost it's lid eons ago, to house all the lids. Yesterday I decided to try two lid containers (until I changed my mind) one for squares/rectangles, the other for rounds.                 

I also decided to dedicate one shelf per shape squares/rectangles on top shelf, rounds on middle shelf, which also houses my mixing  (round) bowls and (round) colanders.  My thought is that family members, if they choose to follow this system, will no longer try to nest a big square into a small round which, by the way, doesn't work so well. 

When I began arranging the containers in the cupboard I decided that the squares/rectangles and their lids took less room if I stored a few with their lids on. The rest were made into a few groups which are stored with their lids. This will make lid finding a little easier - if I keep up with this system.

We'll see how it works. Sometimes I get these brilliant ideas only to find that it only works in theory but doesn't work for me (or my family). The key is to try new tactics until I find what works for me. My goal is to simplify my housework AND make my space more organized.