Easy Mess Clean Up Tip

The button jar.

It's one of those love-hate relationships.

On one hand, it keeps the toddler SO busy for a good long time.
But then it's also SUPER messy and hard to clean up.

Here is my trick for cleaning up stuff like this off the carpets ~  a lid.  

or a book.
or a snowshovel... ok maybe not a snowshovel...but it might work!

Step one:

Mess Observed.  It's ALL over the room!!  It's going to take forever to clean up, right?

The guilty party.

Here's what you do:

Grab a lid like this, or a big children's board book works too.

Then just start scraping the floor!

See how it leaves a nice clean path!!  

So much easier than trying to use your hands

A pile is so much easier to clean up than having it spread all over the room. 

At this point I have the "guilty party" (uh-hem, Ruby) clean up the pile and put the buttons back in the jar herself.  She even sings the Daniel Tiger clean up song while she helps.

Now hide the button jar!

Who am I kidding....I'm just going to let her do it again tomorrow.  

I've got stuff to do!

This trick works for bigger stuff too.  When toys are ALL.OVER. the play room I grab a big board book (think over a foot big) and start scraping everything into a big pile.  

My kids do better at cleaning up when there's one big pile to clean up than when it's spread out all over the room.  Or at least that's what I think.  

How do you clean up your big messes?  Have you ever tried this method?  How about a snow shovel--I've seriously contemplated getting one just for toys.