Toy Organizing Labels for Kids – Free Printable
As a mother of two children, my house is constantly a mess. And I don’t take that very well. I’m a little obsessive about order in my home and I like for everything to be in it’s place, so I’m always putting things away and tidying up corners. It gives me peace and calm when I see everything put away neatly, or when I go to look for something and find it easily!
My children have a playroom that over time we have been neglecting, until it reached a point when we could not find anything, with the legos, playmobil dolls, play dough and crayons all together … I’ve been saying for months (before the summer) that I’m going to tidy it up and throw away all the things that are no longer useful or that are broken. However it was such a big job that I have been postponing it for a while. But now that Christmas is approaching and they are going to receive more toys, I thought I should do it now, before it gets even more complicated to solve.
Yesterday I finally decided that it was time and I started to do it. And now I’m thinking, why didn’t I do it sooner? It now looks amazing! I explained to the children how and where they should keep everything and not only did they commit to do it, but they were relieved and very happy with the new toy organization. Now when they have to tidy up and sort their toys, they will know where to place each thing, which gives them much more independence to fulfill their tasks, and frees me from always cleaning up after them.
We have an Ikea drawer system, with removable trays that are great for toys. They are easy to take out and put back in, they come in different sizes and colors, and the furniture is very comfortable and practical. So I have made some labels to stick on the front part of the drawer, so they can easily find the category they are interested in taking out, and then it will be easy to find it to put back the pieces that have been left out.
I will briefly explain what I did, but it is really simple:
1. Take everything out
There is no other way. Where there are small children’s toys there is always a lot of rubbish: loose pieces from games, broken pieces and toys that need to be thrown away, as well as the dirt that accumulates in the bottom of drawers. It is convenient to take out everything to clean the containers as well.
2. Separate and categorize
For starters I took two garbage bags: one for the things I wanted to throw away and another for the things I wanted to give away . And then from there I just separated the toys by categories: legos, cars, dolls, superheroes, animals, musical instruments, tools, toy food … The board games and the boxes go in another closet, so those are easier to organize, since stacking them by size seemed like the best way to do it.
Once we’ve separated all the toys into categories, it’s much easier to see how you’re going to re-organize them. If there is a small amount of pieces or there are many, if they are small or large, if they require a lot of space to play or not… Keep all those things in mind when setting everything up. For example, legos should be in a place where they can take it out and have space to make their creations. Or if we have a toy kitchen, the toy food should be near it.
3. Organize
And now all we have to do is put everything in it’s place and put the labels on! I used a plastic sticker to laminate them at the same time that I stuck them onto the plastic trays. This way they will last longer.
I want to share these printable labels with you because it has helped us a lot on a daily basis, and I think it can help you too. You have them in different colors, some have drawings of different categories and others are writable files, so you can write the text you want. I hope they help you!
Please leave me a comment and tell me how your organization has been, I would love to hear your experience.
Printable adhesive paper options:
Download the free printables below:
