(check out my photos and highlights on Instagram @kgennis)

I spent Saturday sick and let my parents take care of me! It was the BEST honestly. I took the boys over, my parents watched them and allowed me to nap. (Yes, I have a very recent negative Covid test result.) The boys absolutely love time with all of their grandparents, we are SO fortunate to have them all close by. So Sunday as I began to feel better, after laying around all day Saturday, I was motivated to CLEAN & ORGANIZE ALL of the TOYS in the house! I have really been wanting to do this before Christmas. Parents, do you ever get overwhelmed by all of the toys, clutter and those pesky little broken pieces everywhere? For me it was becoming daily.

I like cleanliness, organization and things just being put away. (When I moved back home after college, my younger brother once told me that my bedroom looked like a museum.) Of course with 3 little boys, it has not been easy but I have learned to live with it, their mess that is. They do put away toys every night before bed but they have not been organized and put in their proper place every time. (Plus, they have a Daddy who may be the messiest of them all…) So, I took 4 hours STRAIGHT to get the toys where they needed to be and now there are also many large piles of items to get rid of by either donating or just trash. We are donating baby toys and things in good condition that need a new home in order to make room for the new things that they may be getting for Christmas. I am also trashing or donating any free/cheap things they got over the years that are never played with any longer such as happy meal toys. Highly recommend purging every once in a while!

On my blog, I will share a lot of what I have done to get their toys in order but today I am concentrating on the organization of LEGOS specifically. Check out my instagram page @kgennis. Today I have videos of this in my stories and saved to the highlight “Organization”.

It may seem very simple, just sort by color, but as a Mom to 3 lego loving boys, I have learned a lot about exactly how to best keep them organized for good.

Here are my TIPS for parents helping to sort and store their childrens’ Legos.

1. Assess what you have. Bring them all to one common area where you can look everything over and see all of it together.
2. Find appropriate storage. We have a small tool organizer with 24 see-through drawers from Akro Mils- linked here. (Look at those reviews!) We also have a tall stand up drawer for larger completed pieces and all of the manuals that come with Lego sets.
3. When assessing and sorting, you just have to start somewhere. I took the biggest pieces out- things that were built or half built and set them aside for the larger stand up drawer.
4. Next, sort by color. Start with what you have the least of (orange, yellow, brown). Then move on to what you have the most of. For us, it was black, white and gray. Ask for help here, Hunter (7) and Deacon (5, almost 6) were helpers. Wyatt (2) was not. Many hands make light work!
5. Also, make separate piles for things that are not Lego bricks such as Lego people, windows/doors, windshields, tire, and so forth. These things can have their own drawer.
6. Do not waste your time taking pieces apart! Some things I came across have 5-10 small legos put together. This may be something they are working on and so I just put it in the color drawer that it matches mostly.
7. Now you can pull out the drawers and put them on the floor or a table when ready to play. Keep the built pieces in the larger storage container and then encourage them to sort and clean up when done with the Legos for the day. Eventually they will be doing this one their own.
8. Use the Lego plates for building! This will help to keep what they are building longer and so it won’t break or get destroyed. (Lego plates can be pricey but also make a great Christmas gift. Linked here and here.)
9. This will be a constant job to keep up with but it will help in the end. My boys are so happy to have it organized now because it helps them to play and build more easily for years to come.
10. Please know that this is not for 3 year olds (or younger)- Wyatt is ready to destroy everything I have done. An hour of work can be dumped in 2 seconds flat! It won’t be worth your time and energy for them to just dump out all of the nicely organized containers. Maybe girls are different at thus age, I don’t know. If you have a young one, keep your older kids’ Legos containers out of their reach!

Anyway, I bet you never knew so much went into keeping LEGOS! But when you are a Mom to 3 boys who happen to all love building, you learn a few things along the way. I also remember spending countless hours with my brother and friends at our babysitter’s house playing with Legos, just building for hours upon hours. Our family loves them so much and is a great break from screen time and especially in the wintertime when they may not be able to play outdoors. I also add Lego sets to my Amazon list for family to pick out for the boys. They can spend hours now following the manuals and building in silence- it is amazing!

I always love to hear from you, if you have more tips to share, please do! I think I will compile a list of our top favorite building sets too.

As always, thank you for reading. If you enjoy this, please share this post with your friends! I always appreciate it!

xoxo. Kim