We've kept all the kids' shoes in our mudroom (near the garage and the front door) for many years. One bin per child, though Katie and Harmony share.
As you can imagine, my kids aren't so consistent with putting their shoes away in their bins and so for several years, one of the kids has been assigned to straighten the mudroom as their afternoon zone (while others are emptying dishwashers or cleaning the great room).
The problem we've run into is that who-ever is cleaning the mudroom has trouble knowing which shoes belong to who. With Michael similar in shoe size to my twins and the twins in two different sizes this year, plus the compounding factor of several of the same style shoe belonging to different children (uniforms), we ended up with lots of shoes lost or missing just as we needed to leave for somewhere. Usually, they'd just been put in the wrong person's bin.
I had each child choose a style they liked, then we labeled their bin with it.
As you can imagine, my kids aren't so consistent with putting their shoes away in their bins and so for several years, one of the kids has been assigned to straighten the mudroom as their afternoon zone (while others are emptying dishwashers or cleaning the great room).
The problem we've run into is that who-ever is cleaning the mudroom has trouble knowing which shoes belong to who. With Michael similar in shoe size to my twins and the twins in two different sizes this year, plus the compounding factor of several of the same style shoe belonging to different children (uniforms), we ended up with lots of shoes lost or missing just as we needed to leave for somewhere. Usually, they'd just been put in the wrong person's bin.
We needed a new idea.
Enter duct tape. Lots and lots of patterned and colored duct tape.
I had each child choose a style they liked, then we labeled their bin with it.
Now, sorting the shoes in the mudroom is simply a matter of matching the colors and patterns. Easy enough even my three-year-old could do it.
How do you organize your kids' shoes?
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