LEGO Organization

If you have school aged kids in your home then you’re likely to have a stockpile of LEGO too! I have loved to play with LEGO since I was a kid and while under a shelter-at-home order my kids love for the toy increased ten-fold. This in turn, meant that the amount of LEGO bricks around our home also increased. I attribute this partly to the show LEGO Masters and partly to my late night online shopping. With nowhere to go during quarantine my kids built with LEGO for hours on end and left bricks all over the house, which, finally brought me to the brink. There are only so many times a person can step on a LEGO and not start to lose it! I have always struggled to find a way to organize our LEGO and with the additional time at home I took some action! If you’ve struggled with this too, read on for my TAKE on LEGO organization.

I’m going to break it down into pre and post quarantine organization styles which I think is important because it’s completely enhanced how our kids engage with their LEGO bricks.

LEGO Organization - 1st Attempt

Our oldest child is 8 so we’ve been acquiring DUPLO and LEGO sets for quite a few years now. For the most part all of our DUPLO pieces are stored in these large LEGO storage heads. It’s no surprise that I am a sucker for these - they are cute and stackable but to be honest, don’t have a ton of storage capacity. However, they work fine for the DUPLO and for some reason, using these entice my kids to clean up after themselves.

As for our regular LEGO brick collection…we would really just store these in bins. The sets would be built and sometimes displayed but more times than not dismantled. Additionally instruction booklets and excess pieces would go together in a Ziploc bag and sit within the bin forever…as in were never played with again. The oldest two each had a large bin of LEGO and not only were they never played with but they were busting at the seams.

So thanks to the show LEGO Masters the kids had a renewed interest in actively building with their bricks and it motivated me to come up with a better organizational system.

LEGO Organization - 2nd Attempt

We are a bit limited on space in our home and don’t have a dedicated playroom so I wanted to find a solution that wouldn’t be space constrictive or always visible. After a bit of internet scrolling I landed on the 3-Tier Rolling Cart. I selected this option because I knew that it would fit perfectly in my son’s closet and we could easily move it around our main floor.

In order to organize the bricks within the cart I purchased a handful of complimentary items. The cart has three tiers so each tier has one of these handled trays placed in it. Under each handheld tray on each tier we store our LEGO baseplates which has been a huge space saver because I didn’t know where to store these in the past. We color coded most of our bricks (this alone was a great way to keep them occupied) so within the handheld trays we also have these small tote inserts to create space for additional colors. I believe I ordered 8-12 of the inserts because each side of the tray has 2-3 of the inserts. In addition to aiding in color coding they are great for storing lego figures or smaller random food pieces. We added one magnetic tray to the exterior of the cart which is also used for figurines (we have a lot of them) but could be used for random LEGO accessories like food or flowers or tiny pieces.

As for our instruction booklets we opted to continue to store these in plastic storage bins. Each child still has a bin in their closet for these albeit, a much smaller bin. I didn’t have the heart to get rid of the books because despite the kids loving to devise their own creations it’s nice to know that they can take an instruction booklet and rebuild a set. If you don’t want to store the booklets in a bin an alternative would be to get a three ring binder and insert the instruction manuals into plastic sleeves. Overall, we’re really happy with the organization overhaul and I have noticed how often the kids will bring out the cart to build or use it to complete a STEM challenge during e-learning. You’d be surprised how many LEGO bricks can fit in one cart!

P.S. If you haven’t watched LEGO Masters definitely check it out. It’s great for kids and adults…Will Arnett may be slightly obnoxious, there will be some cringe worthy scenes, and you’ll also learn some grammar. For example, did you know that the plural of LEGO is LEGO? Happy brick building!

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Our Homeschool Cart

Our days at home now number 19 and we’ve become somewhat resigned to the reality that we will be here for a while. All five of us in our home can be a lot sometimes especially when two of us are trying to work while help the kids succeed at e-learning. We only have one true office/desk area and the bedrooms aren’t large enough for desks so it’s been a bit of a free for all with laptops and school supplies all over the place. I love myself some school supplies but after not being able to see our dining room table for the past two weeks I needed to take control. Perhaps this was my way of dealing with the uncertainty of the times but creating a homeschool cart to organize all the supplies the kids need for school plus a bunch of educational games and books felt so good! The kids loved helping to organize the cart and so far have actually kept it organized. So if you’re like me and are opening to regain a bit of control during these times, read on for my TAKE on a homeschool cart. Hope it helps at least one more parent stay sane!

I’ve always wanted to build an art cart for my kids so when the dining room table became a school desk for two (sometimes three) kids I took it as an excuse to create a homeschool cart. Having everything in place makes it easy for the kids to grab what they need throughout the day and alternatively, put things a way when they’re through. Plus the cart is easily wheeled into other rooms when the need arises.

The cart itself I ordered from the Recollections line at Michael’s. I opted for the larger version as I needed to house items for two kids but there is a smaller version with a lid accessory that could help the cart transition into a desk. Aside from the cart itself we had most if not all of the educational games, school and art supplies at home and I just pulled them from different closets and arranged on the carts shelves. There is a lot that can fit into this three tier cart and despite being jam packed is quite durable.

We have the cart full of the standard workbooks, pencils, crayons, paper, scissors and glue sticks but some items that have been helping to make our transition into e-learning a little bit easier are as follows:

• Osmo Base for iPad - We do have Osmo and love it but the base has been particularly helpful when needing to prop the an iPad up to join a Zoom meeting or to use the Seesaw Class app.

• A new set of these Crayola Double Doodlers have been a hit and have helped to get the creativity flowing during art projects.

• We start each day with journaling and writing a letter to a friend so a journal and stationary are located in a prime spot on the cart. Thankfully, I randomly stocked up on some stamps in early March so we will be able to keep up with our letter writing efforts for a couple of more weeks.

• Supplemental games for Math and Spanish are played a few nights a week in our house. Mobi a fast numerical tile game, Math Dice Junior and eeBoo’s Time Telling game are most popular. As for Spanish our workbooks were accidentally left at school so we’ve been using eeBoo’s Spanish Bingo and vocabulary flash cards to supplement. Luckily regular Spanish lessons are starting this week!

• Kinetic Sand and Mad Mattr have been popular for my younger two. They love sensory things and you can use these materials to trace letters or to discuss textures.

• Headphones! Don’t forget the headphones! They help my oldest of focus when there are many distracting younger siblings abound.

• And of course, painters tape which has been the most surprisingly useful homeschool product to date. Mostly for the pre school set in creating invitations to play but also for chalk art.

There are so many supplies that you can add to a cart to make it useful for your family…books for quiet time and Magna-tiles have also been really helpful for us. Hope you have fun with putting your school supplies together and most of all good luck with this e-learning adventure!

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