Mummy Tip: Organise With Colours and Labels
This Mum’s organisation tips help her to stay mega organised. By colour coding and labelling her kids items at home, she manages to help her kids keep track of their own belongings. You’ll be amazed to learn how super easy it is.
Deidre Turner, Mum of 5, tells Bright Star Kids
As a mum of 5 little kids I’m a huge fan of colour coding kids things, I really believe it makes life easier for me and the kids. I am a tad obsessed with colour coding, as you can probably guess.
What is colour coding?
Colour coding kids’ stuff is where you assign each child a colour and buy items in that colour so they can easily identify what belongs to who.
What are the benefits of colour coding for kids?
- Own fewer items overall, 1-2 things in each child’s colour.
- Kids take responsibility for their items more easily. It is much simpler for little kids to take their dishes to the kitchen and hang up their towel when they can easily identify which items are theirs based on looking for ‘their’ colour.
- Easy for parents to see at a glance who has been leaving their dishes/towel lying around!
- Easier sorting with items like socks, jocks clothing etc when you can see the colour at a glance.
- No fighting over who gets what colour. This was seriously the biggest benefit for me, my older twins used to argue endlessly over one particular green plate, assigning colours eliminated these arguments completely.
- Rainbows make people happy (I just made that one up-but my rainbow shelf makes me happy)
Who benefits from colour coding for kids?
If you have 2 or more kids, you’ll benefit from colour coding, the more kids you have, the easier it makes life to have a system like this in place.
I started colour coding when I had my 2nd set of twins over 2.5 years ago (I had 5 kids in 5 years), I figured I was going to need to level up if I was going to keep up with 5 little boys!
I didn’t do all this overnight, I’ve bought things gradually and added things I colour code over time.
Picking colours:
To pick the colours I went with easy to find primary colours, red, green, blue, yellow and orange. I have all boys so steered away from pink and purple, however pink and purple are easier to find than yellow and orange, so if you’ve got a girl (or boy) that loves pink or purple, those are great colours to use. I’ve found the 4 easiest colours to find are green, blue, pink and purple.
To decide who had which colour for which child, I went with the favourite colours for the older three kids. The younger 2 just got assigned a colour at birth.
The kids colours are as follows:
Mr. 8 twin 1: red
Mr. 8 twin 2: green
Mr. 5.5: blue
Mr. 2.5 twin 1: orange
Mr. 2.5 twin 2: yellow
Mr. Green recently told me that his favourite colour is now purple, but I’ve instituted a ‘no changing colours’ rule as I’ve already bought all his stuff in green
What items do you colour code?
You can colour code anything really, towels, dinnerware and name stickers are a good place to start.
Here is a list of the items I have colour coded, I’ll list the brand next to them so people can find them if they want:
- 2 bath towels (mine are the Pillow Talk Urban Range)
- 1 face washer (Pillow Talk Urban Range)
- 1 toothbrush (Caredent Kids Junior Sparkle Toothbrush)
- 1 laundry hamper (eBay cheapie)
- 2 plates (1 divider plate, 1 normal-RePlay)
- 2 bowls (1 small, 1 large-RePlay)
- 2 cups (1 sippy cup for the younger 2-RePlay)
- 1 double snack pod (RePlay)
- 1 drink bottle (Nike)
- 1 Personalised Bento Lunch box (Bright Star Kids)
- Kids Name Labels (Bright Star Kids)
- 1 Personalised Swim Bag (Bright Star Kids)
- 1 Personalised beach towel (Yellow Duck Baby Gifts)
- approximately 7 pairs of undies (Big W, but the orange and yellow ones are hand made by my very talented friend as I couldn’t find these colours in store)
- approximately 7 pairs of socks (If I can’t find the right colours, I just black or white in a size that fits multiple kids)
Other things I colour code:
Hangers:
Approximately 20 hangers per child (I colour coded their hangers by buying coloured dots from Officeworks and sticking them on wooden hangers from Kmart). Kids’ clothes are hung on their colour coded hangers straight out of the washing machine to save folding.
Clothing:
While I don’t colour code the kids’ clothes, I do draw a dot in their colour on the tag of their clothes so I can quickly identify who’s clothing is whose. This is handy when you have several kids in similar sizes like I do. When the clothing is passed down, I just draw the next kid’s coloured dot next to the first one and so on.
Stationery:
- I have chalk pens in each child’s colour which I use to write their appointments etc on my planner board with (chalk pens and board from Daily Orders)
- Folder dividers in their colour to easily identify each child’s section in a folder of important information (bank statements, birth certificates etc). Instead of having 1 folder each I consolidated this down into all 5 kids paperwork in one folder. (from Officeworks)
- Ring binders in their colour containing their daycare and school achievements. (from Officeworks)
- I know this list is pretty extensive, but what you colour code is up to you. Products I really recommend from experience is everything RePlay (recycled and really durable), my boys are rough with their stuff and the RePlay items still look like new after 2 years. Plus they have an awesome range of colours. Also Nike drink bottles are the bomb, my boys destroyed every other type but these ones are really sturdy and don’t break or leak and come in a good range of colours.
My kids love their colour coded items and like all the things I make them in ‘their’ colour. I never have any fights or issues with this system with my kids, it works great. Even my 2 year olds know their colour and can get their towel off the hook and carry their bowls to the sink.
We hope that you’re inspired by Deidre’s colour coding and labelling for kids. It’s a great way to teach your kids life skills and to encourage independence at home while also helping you to keep life organised.
Love Organising?
If you love this idea of colour coding at home to help keep your kids’ things organised, you can find more helpful tips and organisational inspo here.
Looking For Ways Personalise Your Kids’ Items?
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