Discovery Boxes

 Generally at Christmas time, I get a little psycho when it comes to organization simply because of the influx of toys that come into our house. That feeling plus Major's negative behavior prompted me to create these discovery boxes. I had everything on hand already, I just needed to organize them in a way that was more accessible to him. His behavior has been less than awesome in recent weeks. Partially it could be boredom, it could be a phase, it could be that we are busy or that he is just rotten. Whatever the reason, I am willing to try just about anything to cure his attitude. We've done an overhaul on discipline and that's worked somewhat, but we all have a long way to go to make our days (mostly) peaceful. I mean he is 4 and I know we will have rough days, but I'm gonna pull my hair out.....tangent, sorry.....back to those discovery boxes. So I had all the supplies on hand, they just needed to be organized and accessible, like I said. Here is what I have so far....

These are just standard 8.5x11 3 drawer each stackable storage boxes. I labeled the boxes 1-12 so that he could just tell me which one he wanted. He has pretty much learned the order but just in case he forgets....plus, the # recognition is good too.

 In box 1:

Stamp Box

Paper, stamps and stamp pads

 In box 2:

Paint Box

 Paper and paint supplies

In box 3:

Play-doh

 In box 4: 

Glue Box

School glue, glue sticks, paper and lots of fun stuff to glue on paper

 In box 5:

Lacing Box

Empty thread spools, chenille sticks,  strings and beads

 In box 6: 

Cutting Box

Paper, ribbons, rubber bands, straws and of course scissors

 In box 7:

Magnets

Magnet letter and magnet board (cheap little fancy platter from dollar tree)

He has a bigger magnet board upstairs but I may rotate this one out some.

 In box 8:

Well it's empty right now.....I need to go to Lowes!

In it will be: nuts and bolts for fine motor control and hand eye coordination as well as some pvc pipe pieces. Have you ever connected a 5 inch piece to 2 elbow pieces? No? Well it  makes a pretty awesome little phone that actually amplifies your voice :) Neat, huh? So I will see you at Lowes? In the pvc dept... :) I may also throw in a few random pieces too just to see what he comes up with.

 In box 9:

Flash Cards and (hand made, with love) shape fans

 In box 10:

The mail man box

Old Christmas cards and stationary as well as envelopes, return address labels, stuff to make stamps and pens

 In box 11:

Paper and stickers

 In box 12:

Writing

Alphabet worksheets, a workbook, name card and pencil

Additional boxes:

Dr box. Josh brought home tons of goodies from work.  In it: stethoscope, shots, several different masks, gloves, band-aids, gauze, ace bandages, etc. He LOVES this one :)

 Paint:

I decided to keep it separate from the paint supplies just so that my walls didn't accidentally turn purple or something.

 Random misc supplies and overage.

 We have had this addition to our lives for some time now, but in a much smaller box, so today I bought a bigger box for our beans. It is a cool sensory activity and actually feels pretty therapeutic to run your fingers through.

 

 We have a rock and sand table outside but in the wintertime this is a good substitution. We just added some old containers and some shovels :) Lots of fun!

We got a new addition to the playroom as well:

Everyone who knows me knows I LOVE this organizer. Today we went to Target to get another one because ours is overflowing with Legos, Transformers, Cars, dinos and a bunch of other little things. I know for Christmas we will have even more small things to find homes for so hopefully this will make my job easier (and Major's too). 

 Dress Up got a face lift too. 

 I just organized his dress up clothes, got a bucket for the accessories and put the masks with the costumes. Next...I'd love to find a cheap-o mirror that I could paint so that he could see himself.

I hope these discovery boxes fill the blanks in my and Major's day. I hope they give us time together but for him to also feel free to grab one and work independently too. I hope it keeps him busy while allowing his brain to work creatively. Major is the child who needs a lot of attention and activity. He is fine playing on his own sometimes but often needs me to get him started on the activity. He has an amazing imagination, loves to dress up and role play and actually loves to color, write and build things too. I hope these little boxes provide him the jump start he needs to put all his energy, creativity and imagination to work.