Here's a close-up view of my stackable sock bins. I keep ALL of my children's socks in these bins IN the laundry room. I LOVE this because the minute they come out of the dryer, if I can find their mates they get paired up and thrown in the bottom. If I'm in a hurry or cannot find their mate, they get tossed into the top bin with all the other singles. Then when I get a minute, or one of the kids needs a match (or wants to earn some change for their stash) they get matched up and moved to the bottom bin. The other reason I love this is that the socks STAY in ONE place and the kids know right where to find them, (especially in a hurry!) Wondering how to tell the kids' socks apart in the same bin? Simply mark them on the toe with a sharpy!
Each bedroom also has a labeled bin to throw dirty clothes. My 2 boys and my 2 girls share rooms, so they each have a bin labeled accordingly. I love these particular bins because they are not only strong & durable, but they're tall enough and not too tall, and have wheels & handels!! (I got them from Walmart for like $10/ea.)
Now for the system!!... First of all, laundry is just a part of my whole jobs system, so we'll start with this chart here. (I'll show you my whole system another day in the near future, don't worry!) :o) This is a weekly rotation system, so one child will have "laundry room" for a whole week...
*Note- In the little one-story house we live in right now, everything seems close to the laundry room, including my kids' rooms, so this system I'm about to explain was my former system in my much bigger, 2-story house; and is not quite how we do it now...
For one week, the laundry child (pretending it's my son) gathers the laundry from the girls' laundry bin, puts it in his and wheels the whole bin down the stairs and to the laundry room (hence the conveience of wheels & handles!). (Sometimes there may just be a small arm full from both rooms combined, in which case he would not need to bring down the whole bin. But we're not perfect, may miss a day here and there and have some laundry piling up.)
Once he brings them down, he sorts the dirties into the different bins according to color. (For our lil' non-readers, the colored labels help a ton!) I love this because they learn sorting, color matching, and those good ol' problem-solving skills. (I always "train" each child the first few to several times (depending on age) how to sort the colors into the right bins, and it's fun to watch them "get it"!)
When one of the bins gets full or starts to heap, I do that load (or have the laundry child do it or help me do it- all dependant on age). With these bins it seems like a perfect-sized load for my washer.
When the load is done, I take it from the dryer to the laundry room counter, then fold and sort it right there into each child's basket. I then take their baskets to the stairs so they can each take their own basket up to their rooms and put their clothes away. (They have to bring the empty basket down and put it back on the laundry room counter.)
So to re-cap:
1. Laundry child brings down all laundry from the bedrooms in laundry bin.
2. Laundry child sorts dirties into the appropriate bins.
3. Mom and/or laundry child starts a load of laundry when bin is full.
4. Mom and/or laundry child takes load out of dryer and onto counter (or into another laundry basket if no counter space), folds and sorts into proper bins for each child, and socks into sock bins.
5. Children put away their own laundry and return empty basket to designated place.
My laundry system in this house:
1. Children put dirties into their room bins.
2. Mom digs out whatever color she is doing that day from each bin and does a load.
3. Mom takes clean laundry out of dryer and onto counter to fold and sort, etc.
4. Children come into laundry room (or mom puts folded piles on beds) to get their clothes and put them away.
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