Ways to Make Cleaning and Organizing with Preschoolers

Let’s face it, preschoolers are messy! They are too busy playing and have more important things to do rather than to pick up after themselves. Studies have shown that when it comes to organizational skills, it is best to start as early as possible. These behaviors can begin to be set in place as early as 2 or 3. Here are some great tips to get your preschoolers started on getting organized.

• First and foremost – Have FUN! Make it into a game. If you have a timer, try turning it into a race. Let’s say you have a pile of legos that needs to be cleaned. Grab a timer, and turn it into a competition to see who can put away the most amount of legos in the given amount of time. Be wary as to not to make the time length set too long, as short attention spans tend to wander and your child may lose focus.

• If your preschoolers are able to recognize letters, you can use a small series of letters to help keep them organized (and BONUS – help remember those letters too). Bringing it back to those legos. Try marking your lego bin with a large L for “Legos”. Other examples would be using HS for all those hair ties, a C for “Cars”, or B for “Blocks”.

• Have you ever wondered what can you do with all those mismatched socks that are always lying around? Little hands and dusting, that’s what!! If you want to teach your little ones to start dusting at an early age, this is a great way to do it. Plus, there is the added bonus of fun sock puppet hands. 

• Let’s face it, just keeping things off the floor is hard. Using something like a shoe or cubby rack can help. If your preschoolers recognize colors, this could be a great tool to help keep kids organized. If your child cannot yet recognize colors, this could be a fun way to help them learn both colors and organization at the same time. Teaching them to place certain items into their corresponding color-coded bin will make it easier to keep things off the floor.

• Create zones. If you have a preschooler that loves to do arts and crafts, create one area where they can express their creative talents.

• Do they love building with legos? That can be another zone, this can help keep the messes to one zone for easier clean up later.

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