Tag: Cleaning

End your day with a quick play space refresh (your kids will thank you)!

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The kids are asleep and you’re ready to turn in too, when you walk past their play space and realize your darling babies did not do a very effective job cleaning up. The temptation of course is to walk past and let them deal with it in the morning, buuuuuut I have another suggestion. Stop and spend the time cleaning up and setting out play invitations for the morning.

  • Don’t just dump things into the nearest basket, but spend the time to sort and put things away in their correct home.
  • Make sure the baskets and shelves are inviting and their play kitchen doesn’t resemble the aftermath of a huge dinner party.
  • Run the vacuum over the floor – guaranteed there are traces of snack and play still afoot.

Because here’s the thing, when your child wakes up in the morning and sees a beautiful clean space with inviting play invitations (think the start of a block tower, or a tea party set up at their little table) they are 1000 times more likely to want to play and engage with the space, which in turn increases your chances of extra sleep and a little time to spend on yourself. #everyonewins

Sharpen those pencils! | #curatedpsa

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Play space #PSA: Keep your children’s pencils sharpened! Splash out on an electric sharpener and I guarantee your kids will fight over who gets to do it. Remember the materials you set out for your child are play invitations. You can’t expect your child to want to sit down and engage in art if the tools you put out for them are subpar and broken. Spend a minute each day checking your child’s art materials to make sure pencils are sharpened, markers have lids on and are working, glue isn’t empty etc. Value their work and play and they will learn to value themselves too. It really is that simple.

Lillie Foulé’s Bedroom/Play Space Makeover | October 2019

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Lillie Foulé’s bedroom doubles as her play space (and at times as a play space for her baby brother too). Her mama reached out to me because she was feeling overwhelmed by the space, which had become cluttered and wasn’t fostering independent deep play. After an initial consultation it was evident that the main issue was LF had too much stuff.

Being her bedroom, the room needed to have a bed and a space to store all her clothes. It is also the access for her parent’s bedroom door, which is in the finished attic. Being her play space, there was a lot of toys, stuffies, art supplies, and lot of miscellaneous. Lillie Foulé is a vivacious creative four year-old, so finding a way to create a calming sleep space as well as an inviting play space was the challenge.

BEFORE and AFTER

Continue reading “Lillie Foulé’s Bedroom/Play Space Makeover | October 2019” →

Play Invitations.

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Imagine you’re hosting a dinner party. You’re setting the table and laying out the food before your guests arrive. Are you going to a) throw everything into a big pile in the middle and call it a day or b) carefully lay things out in a way that is aesthetically appealing for your guests? I’m going to take a wild guess that everyone will choose the latter, because no one is going to want to sit down and eat a meal that resembles a junk site. This reasoning and thought process should be applied to your children’s play spaces too.

Just like in the Reggio Emilia teaching philosophy that considers the environment the ‘third teacher’, the way you lay out your child’s toys and materials changes the way they play and interact with them. You are essentially setting up play invitations. Stop and go and take a look at your child’s toys. What sort of invitation are you giving your child? Is your space set up in a way that looks inviting to you? No? Then your child probably won’t be interested either. A lot of folks contact me because they are desperate for their children to play and engage independently in their spaces, but it’s never going to happen if you don’t spend the time creating beautiful, interesting play spaces for them.

So the next time you’re cleaning up and organizing their play space, instead of just dumping everything into a jumbled basket of toy soup (this goes for LEGOs too), spend the time to think about and create an environment that will invite and entice your child in to play and engage!

It’s The Little Things (but like, really…)

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Just a little in the moment PSA while I thought about it. Jars. They’re super useful and it always feels good to reuse vs throw them away. I love me a good pretty jam jar for art supplies or storing materials in for the play kitchen. But here’s the deal folks, you’ve got to remove the label properly. Unless you’re keeping it intact for play kitchen purposes, do not partially scrape it off and then call it a day. Aesthetically it is awful. To touch it is awful – so sticky. And it just catches dirt and dust. You wouldn’t want your lovely things displayed in something that, let’s face it, looks like rubbish, and neither do your kids.

Go that extra step and soak/scrub that puppy off. Still sticky? Invest in a product like Goo Gone – it will change your life AND remove all that icky gunky glue. I use it all the time to remove the tape and price tags from things I thrift, to remove the labels from bottles before I make bottle babies, as well as to remove the glue from jar labels.

Side note – here’s a link to some other DIY sticker removal ideas for those who prefer not to buy plastic/use chemicals.

Remember to think about your children’s environment as the third teacher and be thoughtful about the materials you add, including the storage vessels. This idea is a staple of the Reggio Emilia approach, the philosophy I was inspired by when teaching and that still permeates into the work I do now.

Drowning in STUFF? Just get rid of it.

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It’s funny how much anxiety ‘stuff’ can give you, and when you have kids you seem to always have a lot of ‘stuff’. Take the PlayMobil in our house. I had never heard of it before moving to the US and for awhile I would find (and of course buy) bags and bags of it from thrift stores – especially the vintage stuff. I organized it beautifully and placed it out for my oldest to enjoy. And he did love it, but the way he played with it was ALWAYS tip it all out and ultimately leave a trail of pieces all over the house, with ‘junk piles’ of PlayMobil placed in vehicles and other various places. I’m all for toys being played with in open-ended ways, but this game made me miserable. And trust me, it’s not worth being miserable over a toy.

So one day when his interests had shifted, I packed up 99% of the PlayMobil and donated it. Just like that. Did my son ask for it and miss it? Not really. I kept the few key pieces I knew he loved, and by removing the rest of the pieces, he actually started to really engage and play with the PlayMobil vs just exploding them like a volcano. Click HERE for a great article about why fewer toys will benefit your child.

So often I hear from parents that they are hesitant to give away toys because 1) their child might miss it, or 2) it was given by a friend or family member and they worry about upsetting that person. Let me tell you, 1) your child will thank you for creating a cleaner more organized play space. It’s overwhelming for them to be surrounded by so much stuff and it’s hard to focus and play when you don’t know where anything is. Nobody needs 30 stuffed animals or 100 broken crayons. Do yourself and them a favor and purge! I know it’s good practice to get your child involved in the process, but for most kids, giving away their toys is next to impossible. My advice, and what works well for my family, is to find a balance. Continue reading “Drowning in STUFF? Just get rid of it.” →

Tips for Organizing + Cleaning Your Play Space

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Lots of times for folks, the hardest part is knowing how to get started. When faced with a play space overflowing with baskets of tiny toys, it absolutely can feel insanely overwhelming, although I will admit these kinds of scenes also make me super excited to see – haha. But in saying this I still have piles of crap in my house that I should just sit down and spend an hour sorting through and I don’t.

It is a thousand times easier to sort and organize someone else’s stuff than your own, because in your house there is always so many other things to distract your time and brain. Just being a parent is enough of an excuse, and then to be a working parent, a partner, a pet owner, active community member, attempt self care etc etc. The thing is, once you get rolling on cleaning and organizing, you pick up traction and slowly things feel more manageable. I thought I’d share some of the common recommendations I give families who I work with, to help you start to gain some momentum. Continue reading “Tips for Organizing + Cleaning Your Play Space” →

Garrance + Gaspard’s Play Space Makeover | August 2018

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Garrance (7) and Gaspard (4) have a lovely little play space in their sunroom at the back of the house. The space is dedicated to them minus half of the shelving unit which is used for general storage. They have mostly IKEA-type storage for their toys, which had become a jumbled treasure chest of materials over time that were buried deep.

Client goals:

  • Mum wanted a space that was more organized and allowed for more independence and greater play arcs.
  • Garrance wanted a place she could do art, and for it to be easier to have friends over and play.
  • They rent their home so they did not want anything attached to walls.
  • I also tackled their art storage chest, and created a little reading nook in the kids’ bedroom.

Here are the main things I did:

  • So much sorting and organizing! Garrance is an avid artist and also the owner of so many teeny tiny toys. There were totes and baskets filled with them that needed to be sorted through and organized. This is where the main chunk of my time was spent.
  • Rearranged the storage box in the room to be under the windows to free up floor space for a designated art nook.
  • Brought down the dollhouse from the kids’ bedroom as well as the small table and chair.
  • Purchased an IKEA Raskog cart to use as an art cart. Most of what was in their art storage chest was moved over here.
  • Used the two lower shelves on the large shelves for small world play toys and dress-up/gross motor storage.
  • Created a reading nook in the kids’ bedroom using a chair and cart that was already there, but I moved to the free space created when I moved the table and chair to the playroom.

BEFOREIMG_1324 Continue reading “Garrance + Gaspard’s Play Space Makeover | August 2018” →

Eddie and Walter’s Play Space Makeover | July 2018

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This play space makeover was all about organizing and cleaning. Eddie and Walter have some amazing toys and other resources, but everything was lost in deep baskets, out of place, spread around the house, and in total chaos. Their mum was overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start, so I came in and helped get her on the right track. They had everything I needed there, so I came armed with cleaning supplies, time, and my mini sidekicks to help get it turned around. I focused on four main areas in the end…

THE PLAYROOM

BEFORE

  • The space was crowded with too many toys and the deep baskets on the Kallax shelves meant that things were thrown in and lost in the ether.
  • The foam mat on the floor was working primarily as a dust/dirt collector.
  • The room also doubled as the kids’ clothing storage space, but the large dresser took up too much valuable play room.
  • The same went for the large armchair, which didn’t serve much purpose in the space except to house a watchful adult.
  • The artwork on the walls was years old and there were other things to mount that no one had had time to get up.

AFTER

  • I removed some of the unneeded furniture and then shifted around the furniture that was left to create more floor and counter space.
  • I sorted through all the toys and removed ones that were broken, gimmicky (think McDonalds toys), or not age appropriate (i.e. baby toys).
  • The newly sorted toys went back into baskets and were organized in the room by type to help create play areas and inspire play arcs.
  • Art supplies were placed out in the open near the newly introduced easel + work table to encourage art to happen.
  • An area on top of the shelves was created for Eddie’s STEM toys + Legos, out of the reach of baby brother Walter.
  • The foam tiles were removed and small rugs I sourced around the house  were added.
  • Old artwork was taken down and new organizational pieces put up – hooks for ukuleles, a hat rack, and a height chart (all things that were waiting to be mounted).

BEFOREIMG_1784IMG_1800 Continue reading “Eddie and Walter’s Play Space Makeover | July 2018” →