Friends & Family: Activity 5

Benefits for Your Child:

• Organizes belongings
• Knows where to find things

As children are involved in deciding where their belongings go, they can find, use, and return items to the proper place so they can find and use them again later. This develops a sense of ownership and responsibility.

Kindergarten Connection

In kindergarten everything will have a specific place. Baskets, shelves, and objects will be labeled to guide children to put things where they belong. Children will be responsible for their environment.

Activity: What Goes Where?

With your child, explore the things in his/her closet, dresser drawers, or shelves. Have him/her tell you what belongs where. Together, decide what should go in each area. Label with pictures and words so that he/she remembers what goes where.

More Ideas:

• Use this idea in other areas of your home.
• Take out some items and have your child practice putting them back in the correct place. Make this fun. Include variations like racing against a timer.
• Make a picture or poster to represent where things belong.

Tips:

• If your child’s drawings do not look like the contents, keep in mind that the labels need to make sense to your child, not necessarily to you.
• The pictures you use can be hand-drawn or cut from a magazine or a photograph of the actual item.
• There are many ways to label: use sticky labels, tape a piece of paper, or use sticky tack or a string to attach the label.