Recycle, Reuse, Retire

As a family, we try to recycle as much as possible. Sure every once in awhile a paper towel will be thrown in the trash – but we try to be conscience of what we throw away.

With the kids, I’ve started a statement with clean up time. We have our daily pick up of toys – which usually consists of them stashing things under furniture for the clean “look.” We also have our weekly mom sweep, which consist of me finding the proper place for a few things here and there…. and then we have the monthly toss out, which consists of my statement. “Girls, do you want to Recycle this, Reuse it (something like construction paper that they rolled into a cone shape can be reused for a drawing.) or Retire it?” (which means, give away or throw away.)

The monthly toss out takes about an hour and the girls have learned not to get frustrated or upset. I explain to them that old projects cause clutter and if they aren’t going to save it in their box, they need to recycle it. With toys, if it is no longer age appropriate, we decide if it can be given away or thrown away.

Another thing I’ve aways like to do is reconfigure furniture. I feel like it is easier to make a mess when things always stay the same. When you place your furniture in a different spot in the room, (or in a different room altogether) you can de-clutter and organize. When the girls started sharing a room last year, their room became a tight space. However, the guest room stays clean and we only have one kids room to clean up… which is still a chore in and of itself!! 

In other news, I finished buying school supplies yesterday. I realize that we still have 6 weeks of summer, but I saw sales that I had to take advantage of. I have some things left over from last year that the girls can use. (Last school year they were able to re-use composition books. I tore out used pages and they were fine.) The only thing we still need are dry-erase markers. They were the only supply that was not on sale. 

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