Do you have a LEGO obsessed child living in your home?
Does it sometimes feel as if the bricks are everywhere? Do you find them in every room of the house – bathrooms included? This has happened in my house.
I was talking with a mom who said she would never ALLOW her son to have anything LEGO because she didn’t want to deal with the bricks all over the house. Her son had begged her and she always said no because she was confident she couldn’t deal with the mess. Although I felt sorry for the child, I could sympathize with the mother.
To a certain extent you just have to let that control go when you are a parent. I can understand, however, the need to have things in some semblance of order, and the ability to walk through the living room without stepping on LEGOS. After dealing with a LEGO mess for more than two years I decided we needed to take action!
We recently organized EVERY SINGLE BRICK and I have been amazed at the creativity and happiness that has followed!
I am not the first person to store bricks like this, but I wanted to show the system in action so you can be inspired. It really was simple, and it only took us a couple of hours. The steps are very simple:
Decide on your storage system. We purchased clear storage containers from the dollar store – clear plastic shoeboxes. Maybe you want a rolling cart or perhaps you already have a storage system in your child’s room or playroom. Portability was important because I wanted my son to be able to take his bricks wherever he wanted.
Make your own labels or find printables online. We used these free LEGO Storage Printables. There were labels for each of the colors, as well as special theme LEGO sets.
Dump EVERY SINGLE LEGO your child owns in the middle of the room and begin to SORT! This part was fun… my son and I spent a couple of hours talking and sorting LEGO bricks into seven different containers. The feeling of accomplishment as we sorted was very gratifying. Several times I got up to take a break but just couldn’t tear myself away from organizing!
Reward your child for keeping the bricks organized. After the first week of keeping them very organized I let my son pick out one of the tiny LEGO sets at the store. I offer a lot of praise for keeping things neat and help him pick up the bricks each evening before bed. There usually isn’t that much of a mess. Now, he cleans them up on his own. Children aren’t born knowing how to organize. They need training and supervision!
In the time that has passed since the LEGO organization, my son’s creativity has been fueled. He can actually SEE what bricks he has and is not fumbling through tubs and tubs of mixed up bricks. I’ve found him WANTING to keep them organized because it’s so much more fun to build with them this way.
I remember being a bit discouraged once after I posted for help with LEGO storage on Facebook. Most of my friends told me it was pointless to try and organize them… they would all just get mixed up again in a few days.
I’m here to tell you they CAN stay organized.
With assistance, praise, and reinforcement I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results!
Great organizing tip! I am going to include this story on my facebook business page for all the LEGO mothers out there. My autistic son had his own special way of organizing his LEGOSs so I can’t say I tried this. Thanks.
You are welcome! I hope this might work well for your son!
Okay but, how easy is it to maintain? That’s my first thought!
Jessica — I kind of alluded to that in the article — it does take some training to keep up with it, but now that I’ve done that it pays off. Every now and then I have to say “Ok — let’s sort the LEGOs” (I keep a pile of unsorted ones for him to put away).
I have always wanted to sort our TONS of Legos. I think sorting by piece/type would work better for us, but it’s just too big of a project to start! My son is color-blind so sorting by color won’t work for us.
Christine – I have also seen sorting by LEGO theme sets and many other ideas. I guess the idea is just getting an organization system that works for your child!