Organizing a Creative Space

Hello and welcome to the Artful Lessons blog! As a mom of 3 and 6 year old energetic boys, I am always on the lookout for things to stay organized. Today I am motivated to fill you in on some ways that have worked for me to keep my boys organized and help them take ownership over their own toys, supplies and messes. I'm sure we all struggle with all of the tiny little things that kids love to keep. From Legos, to googly eyes, and even different scraps of things that our little collectors think are treasure... How do we keep an appropriate amount of creative manipulatives and building supplies around without going crazy? I have started purchasing stackable meal prep containers to fill their art cabinet with. These containers are lidded plastic, see through containers that are all sorts of sizes but also can be stacked in your art area! This way, you can give ownership to your kiddos within their space while also allowing them to be creative and keep their little treasures until they have moved on to something else. This Rubbermaid 14 piece Food Storage Container System has been so helpful for me and my littles! This system is awesome for organizing in a cabinet, hutch or other smaller space that you have set up your art space. It stacks on itself and the lids are easy enough for kids to open and close by themselves. My 6 year old loves organizing his Legos into the different areas. Especially the little people that he so dearly cares about. These containers are so helpful in keeping him organized and the Legos not a health hazard spread all over his bedroom floor. My 3 year old is a collector of all things. Especially shiny objects that others might see as trash. With these containers I can tell him he can fill up one of them with his shiny treasures, and then once it is filled, we have to sort through and make room so others can fit inside. It is sometimes a challenge to sort through the artifacts, but he does figure it out in the end. If you need larger containers or storage for things that are more elongated, I also have a set of these awesome cereal storage containers. They also stack easily and are different sizes, depending on the needs of your little collector and or the supplies that you find common in your art space. Again, these lids are easy for littles to open and close while the containers are see through and simple to stack on each other. They even come with an area to label if that is your thing. Cereal Style tall containers are another fan favorite to keep organized. These tall containers are great for colored pencils, markers, crayons or other long items. I also use them for pipe cleaners! My favorite thing about this system is that your kids can really take ownership over the organizing process and I find mine really enjoy the final stacking activity at the end. That being said, these containers can act as a stacking game by themselves, and we have spent countless hours making container towers in our kitchen. For really large objects like toilet paper rolls, ping pong balls, and or important rocks your kids find at the local playground, these larger storage containers are a great idea! I recently found this article put out by the NY Times' Wirecutter Titled: How to Make Space for Kids to Be Creative at Home. They have lots of great ideas specifically about Ikea furniture and objects to help with organizing and promoting creative play. I think the main thing to remember when designing a creative space is that it should make life easier for YOU. When your kiddo is in the space they should be self sufficient and be able to let their imagination run with the materials provided. Clearly, that is not always the outcome, but it should be the goal. Child lead creativity is becoming less and less common in our busy over-stimulated society and allowing our children to get bored, slow down and simply use their imagination with some toilet paper rolls is extremely beneficial for their development. Please let me know what works for you in your STEAM, art or creative areas and what your children seem to appreciate the most! I love to hear from you in the comments, via Instagram @artfullessons or Facebook. I also love getting questions about what I should write about next! Disclosure: We sometimes use affiliate links in our content. This won't cost you anything but it helps us to offset the cost of paying our writing team. Thank you for your support and I am always only supporting products that I know and love.