getting organized - kids art room

Recuperating from the holidays and Ava's birthday took me longer than I had anticipated. And that's only because I'm keeping myself busy with other things - like getting ready for 2011 (and even that's taking way too long!). Which makes me realize going through this process that the entire month of January should be dedicated to this effort, instead of also trying to do a hundred and one things at the same time too. Still - it's been nice seeing changes around the house, especially in the art room - where it is incessantly messy everyday.

The hardest part was putting away their masterpieces from last year. I usually decorate the room with all their fun art - but it was time to de-clutter and make room for new ones right? I purchased this large container box last year where we started to drop in the children's paintings and 3-dimensional art. And thank goodness - both Noah and Ava's favorite pieces of 2010 all fit inside.

These dollar baskets do more than sit pretty on the shelf. Each contain different types of paint bottles we've acquired (finger paint, acrylic, tempura, etc)...

I tried to reuse what we have at home already without rushing to The Container Store and starting over. Stack-able office trays helps divide paper... and tupperware helps contain all those wriggly and fuzzy pipe-cleaners. 

And the see-through containers (from IKEA) helped save my insanity. They come with removable dividers - which helped organize stickers, old game pieces, googly-eyes, and colorful gems, the kids use in their crafts.

This is actually a kitchen utensil organizer I found at IKEA - perfect for art supplies aren't they?

We started embroidery a few years ago - and I'm ashamed to say we didn't do any in 2010. So now I have these out - in a large basket (yarn gets its own) and the embroidery hoops and plastic sheets can all be found here on the shelf.

By the art room's entry, Ava and Noah each have their own baskets to hold their activity workbooks and journals. This is probably my most favorite section - because here, the kids can pull out their books when ever they feel like doing a maze, or scribbling.

The room has cleaned up well - now it's up to the planning of activities that we will do in here. From online resources, to stacks of preschool curriculum books - it makes me dizzy thinking about lesson plans for the year. Part of the problem is that I have too many resources to sort through. And the other problem, is that I'm trying to coordinate seasons, science experiments, math, reading and writing all within a general theme each month - of activities I know my kids will respond the most to (aka - not easy). It's one thing to see a great idea in a book, but its another to think through it and realize, Ava doesn't care about animals with letters on them - she may respond better to bugs. 

So while this task is daunting - I've decided to not try to do a 12-month plan all right now - but rather on a weekly basis. Because if my life's a testament - I should know better... things change constantly. New ideas pop up, and there's gotta be room penciled in for spontaneity. That's the best way we know how...

Tomorrow I'll share some resources (for home and around town)...and also a big update about the blog!