It’s a Zoo Out There

Or in there. Where? The playroom.

So we tamed the animals and put them in a real zoo.

Well, a zoo made of 1x2’s and dowels.*

Inspired by this $160 zoo that holds way more stuffed animals than I would ever allow our children to own. And ours cost about $20. That’s approximately $140 savings. And Mr Einstein and I got to work on a project together. Which we love doing. Okay, I’ll be honest, which we’re learning to love doing together.

How do you tame the zoo at your house? Do your kids love stuffed animals as much as mine do? Do you have a stuffed animal quota?

* sorry for the lame picture. This picture was showing the aftermath of General Conference in April. I’ll replace it with a better picture of the zoo when I get a chance.

Play and Sort

I am a big fan of sorting.

And a little obsessive.

Of course, like any good obsessive mother, I have to make sure the kids are obsessive, too. And then, there is the fact that sorting is good for kids cognitive development. You don't need fancy games or worksheets or projects to teach kids about sorting. In fact, all you need to be slightly neurotic about the playroom being organized, and then you will have an opportunity every day to sort with your kids!



I made these toy bags for Christmas one year when V was getting too old for just baby toys and I felt like the toys were taking over the family room. There was an animal one, too (with an elephant on it!) but our animal collection quickly outgrew the size of the bag.



I also realized that the bags are only really good for toys that are better to play with in a set (train tracks, blocks, dishes) where these plastic drawers work better for "categories" of toys (robots/people/machines, building blocks, animals, etc). If the kids are looking for a lion, they just pull out the animal drawer and get a lion, instead of dumping out the whole bag.

And when it's time for clean up? Sorting practice!

I made signs from pictures I took of the kids' actual toys for the front of each drawer - to make it a little more personal, and to help them with sorting. I was thinking of printing them in color, but I think the black and white is less distracting. I am pretty happy with our system for now, but I want to build a toy shelf/cupboard that I can lock up (when the kids don't clean up their toys or when we don't want them out all over the place). However, I think I will keep a lot of our current system when I build the cupboard.

How do you organize toys? Do you have to convince yourself that having all those little toys everywhere is actually good for your kids? How do you get your kids to clean up their toys? Do you play games with them?

 - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Book Marketing

I am no bookstore owner, but when it comes to our home library, I sure love my kids to pick out good books. Well, since we only have good books, I like them to pick out books – of any kind. The problem with traditional bookshelves + kids is that the books are all crammed together, the kids can never put them back on their own, and they don’t even really know what is on the shelf, nor are they curious – especially pre-readers (both of my kids are pre-readers right now).

So when I was looking around for ideas for my kids’ room, I saw these shelves (and a lot more just like them) on Pinterest. And then, I put up a few myself:

 The new reading area in the kids’ room (please excuse the pink walls – we’re working on a paint color… any suggestions?)

The books are layered 3-5 books deep in spaces, and I fully intend to rotate them every few weeks, just to make sure some new books are out on top.

“The power of face-out works even at the lowest levels of literacy. When researchers observed a kindergarten classroom library for one week, 90 percent of the books that children chose had been shelved with the covers facing out.” (here)

I had read about this a loong time ago and had every intention of making some face-out book displays for the kid’s books, but I never got around to it. I got these shelves at IKEA for about $15 each.  More expensive than rain gutter, but it was the easiest solution for me, since I am the main handy-man around here (handy-woman? eh, whatever). Three screws and it was in. I am going to go back and use some wall anchors because I couldn’t find the studs (my husband is out of town – which might have had something to do with that problem. Ha ha)

Before I even had the books up on the shelves, both Little and Baby were devouring book after book (Little is 4, and Baby is 2, so they don’t actually read them – but they can tell the story pretty well from the picture, which is great in terms of literary development).

These books will make it easier for us to pick the books we want to read for bedtime, as well. Which means faster bedtime routine (which I love – not that I don’t cherish bedtime, I really do – I just don’t like how long it takes to get to each step. I prefer to spend my time actually reading to the kids rather than hunting down books).

We keep a “book basket” in the living room, and I want to make a book sling for the family room downstairs so any book will have a home in any room in our house, and so books will be found in every room. The more places we can find to put books, the more our children will read – I’m sure of it!

How do you market reading to your children?