How to Organize an Art Cart for Kids

As my daughter has grown, our extra room over the garage has gone from a playroom to an art/hangout room and has had to be revamped several times as we clear out old supplies, toys and books that we aren’t using anymore.

One thing that has been in there for a long time is an art cart, but even though I’ve written about how to organize one of these carts ours has never been very well organized.

You can get these carts just about anywhere these days (ours is a Raskog from Ikea, but you can get a dupe from Amazon) and they are super handy if you don’t have a whole room dedicated to creativity and need to store things in a way that they can easily be moved, such as when the art space is also the dining room.

If you have a cart for your bonus room, home school room or classroom, Little Bins for Little Hands has some great tips (and their cart looks much better than mine!). It looks like she has the Amazon version mentioned above, and her post gives you the rundown of all the things on her cart or that you might want to add to yours depending on the interests of your kids.

If yours is in a classroom you can always change up the kinds of supplies that are available through the year or add in seasonal stickers, paper and other supplies.

The post also talks about why it’s great to have an art cart, but for me the main thing is to keep things accessible and visible because that’s how I like my supplies in my office, too. That way you can get inspired by things and not necessarily have to think as much about what you want to make before you get started because you have some boundaries based on what’s on the cart.

Check out the post on Little Bins for Little Hands for more details. If you have an art cart I’d love to hear what you use it for!

[Photo: Little Bins for Little Hands.]

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Summer Reading Printables and Tips for Parents

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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