Color the Kids Organized

We have only 4 kids, but when the oldest of the 4 is 5 it seems like you have 45 on some days.  :)  So, I was inspired to "color the kids organized".  This is how it works:

At our house all of the children have their own color.

Lexxus likes pink or purple.

Meghan is very green person, and I do mean green.  No color will work for her, but green!

Wesley is a given, he's the only boy, so naturally he gets blue.  Of coarse, he and his daddy like the Kentucky Wildcats, so blue works just fine for him.

And then you have Jennabeth, who doesn't really have a favorite color {but she does love lady bugs!} and usually gets red or orange or whatever color is left over at the store. 

They each have their own plate and cup and I know who didn't eat all their food, or forgot to clean up their mess when they were finished eating.  I can walk into the bathroom and know exactly who didn't brush their teeth yet today, or who brushed them, but didn't put their tooth brush away.  Same with water bottles that are left out in the yard or garden after a long, hot day of playing.

When the girls were really young and all of them shared a room and a dresser.  I bought them an old dresser at a yard sale.  They were still small enough to keep all of their clothes in that one dresser and it just happened to have 6 drawers.  So, I painted the dresser white and I painted the knobs different colors.  Each girl got 2 drawers.  Lexxi used the drawers with the pink knobs.  Meghan used the drawers with the green knobs.  Jennabeth got the purple knobs.  It was easy for them to remember which were their own drawers, and then as they got older and were given more responsibilities, I was able to tell who needed to close, or re-organize their drawers. 

Obviously, you can't color code everything.  But it did seem to help keep people and things more organized and the kids really seem to like the fact that they have their own possessions to take care of.  Piggy banks, crayon boxes, slime, bottles of bubbles, laundry baskets, clothes hangers, Easter baskets, bouncy balls, shovels and buckets and sun glasses are just a few of the things that we've "color coded" in the past.  Anything to make life a little easier and more fun!