Do your kids dig and dig looking for just the right Lego piece? Is it time to organize the legos? We realized recently that the boys were old enough now that it was time to start creating a better organization system for their legos.
How to Know When It Is Time to Create an Lego Organization System
When we first started collecting Legos the boys were fine just sticking any color or shape Lego together. The boys would make wonderful rainbow creations but recently I noticed they would dig and dig just for the right piece. I started noticing that their creations became more realistic in color and shape.
So I stopped and asked Zane if he wanted to organize his Legos so they were easier to look for just the right piece. He quickly said, “Yes, please!”
[Tweet “One way to keep items organized in the playroom is to have your kids help!”]
How to Make sure it Stays Organized
We sat down and talked about how he wanted to organize his Legos. Did he want to do it by shape or color? He chose color.
I then explained they would have to help organize the colors first. We then started grabbing lots of different tupperware, bins, and boxes to start organizing. I wanted to organize the Legos before we invested in an organization system. That way we could see what we needed but also the special organization system would be a reward.
It did take us about 3 to 4 weeks to get the Legos separated. The boys did a few organization sessions for about a couple weeks. Then I took over when the pieces got really small and overwhelming. Some of their organization sessions did end in play time but then they got to see what it was like building from their color organization!
They also got learned how hard it was to separate all the Legos so are more likely to keep them separated.
Key Elements of our Perfect Lego Organization System
As we separated the Legos by color I really thought through what I wanted with the Perfect Lego Organization. We had just set up a art table for them, that would be a Lego Creation table as well. So the organization system needed to work with that table.
Must Have List for the Lego Organization System:
- Enough boxes to cover colors and special items
- Boxes that slid all the way out to be taken to the floor or table
- Boxes large enough to hold the color that we had the most items of
- Boxes that didn’t have in holes or crevices legos could get stuck in
- Not too expensive
- Bonus: A way to display creations for each boy
I looked at a lot of different local stores but I finally chose a system from Ikea!
Ikea Lego Organization
After looking at some of the Trofast options we found the perfect one. We picked the stair step storage solution.
Lego Display Area
The storage system also had a three surfaces that we could use to display finished creations. One for each boy and one we could use later if we need to for combined works. They are large enough areas that if they want to make their creations on a Lego board then it will still fit in the area.
Custom Boxes
You can put 12 boxes in the Trofast system. We used 10 of the boxes: Minifigs, Boards, Red/Pink, Orange/Yellow, Green, Blue/Purple, Brown, White/Clear, Grey, and Black. So we have room to grow with either a bigger box for gray block or separating out some of the colors more if we need to.
How I Labeled our Lego Storage Boxes
I created these simple labels and then laminated them so they lasted and glued them to the boxes (click the images above for my step by step instructions).
Print Your Own Labels
[button-green url=”https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0ePs_uyL0xlcWNBQjJ1TE9GUVk/view?usp=sharing” target=”_blank” position=”center”]Print Lego Organization Labels[/button-green]
Check Out My Office/Playroom Tour I Shared on Periscope
How do you Organize Your Legos?
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