Tag Archives: books

KONMARI WITH KIDS: BOOKS

Posted on February 23, 2017 by KMB

Welcome to my new series: ‘KonMari With Kids’.

Last week I shared how I KonMari’d my kids clothes – Baby, Toddler and Tween. You can read all about it HERE.

If you have just joined me – WELCOME – I recently completed the KonMari method with my OWN belongings, read ‘My KonMari Journey‘ to see how I did. Now, it’s time to get stuck into my kid’s stuff – I have two children: Miss B, soon to be 12 years old and Master M, soon to be 3 years old.

Marie suggests children as young as three years old can decide what gives them joy and the key principle is that each person should be making the decisions for themselves. Before you tackle your kids items, she does recommend you KonMari your own belongings first.

In a nutshell, Marie Kondo has four rules she recommends people follow when doing the KonMari Method:

1. Tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible

2. Sort by category, not by location

3. Selection Criterion: Does it ‘spark joy?’

4. Order of tidying: Clothes, Books, Documents (Paper), Miscellaneous items (Komono), and Mementos (Sentimental)

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Today I am sharing: KIDS BOOKS

BABY & TODDLER

As a Mum and Teacher, I know how important it is to read to and with your children. When my daughter was younger, we had A LOT of books, probably 3 times more than the photo above, many of which were not read because she had her favourites, as they do. So when we moved out of our home (she was 7), we culled her books, only keeping the ones she absolutely loved and donated the rest. Fast forward a few years and those books are now in her little brother’s collection.

When we moved into our new home, the previous owners left a buffet table unit with shelves and slider cupboard doors – which has become a fantastic storage unit for kids toys and books. I put baby toys, books and puzzles in one side of the unit.

I organise the books by colour, as this makes it a lot easier when it is time to tidy up and after a while our toddler was able to return books on his own – and plus, who doesn’t love looking at a rainbow of books.

Our son is turning 3 in March, so I figured it was time to make changes to this cupboard. As you can see in the picture below, it’s overflowing with items that are no longer suitable for our son. It’s also a good time to go through the books and remove any ‘baby’ books.

BEFORE:

We also have a front facing library shelf in the playroom, where I rotate a collection of his books.

Following Kondo’s rules, I took all of the books out of the cupboard and put them on the lounge floor. I also grabbed a small collection of Little Golden Books that were in his room, and added them to the pile.

I had my little helper, helping me decide which books ‘spark joy’ and which books don’t. I didn’t think he would say no to any, but he did. He found a few new favourites too.

DONATE PILE

As you can see our donate pile is fairly small, that being said – it is made up of baby books, duplicates and books we don’t read, so we are passing them on. I think we had two books that needed to be discarded because they were badly ripped.

AFTER:

I decided to organise the books by colour again because it is a system that works for our family and it is helping our son with colour recognition, so it’s a win win. I have also taken away a lot of the ‘baby’ toys and puzzles and replaced them with puzzles and activities that are age appropriate. I donated the puzzles and discovery bottles to his home-based carer who has two under 2’s.

TWEEN

As I mentioned above, when my daughter was younger, she had A LOT of books. By the time we moved in with my partner, Miss B was 7 and she was starting to read chapter books more. So we donated majority of her picture books to a local op-shop – only keeping her/our favourites.

Fast forward a few years, her book collection has grown – not by much though because she got into the habit of loaning her books from the school library or public library (which is a great idea), and all of her picture books were passed on to Master M.

We corralled her books together and she started to pick out her favourites and donated the ones she no longer wanted. I forgot to take a photo, but there were about 5 or 6 that went into the donate bin.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Miss B has her books stored on an 8-shelf unit in her wardrobe. She still loans books from the library, and asks for a book every Christmas and Birthday (which is just around the corner), so for now her collection is small, however she loves each of these books and will happily read them over and over again.

KonMari With Kids: BOOKS – COMPLETED

To be honest with you, I thought this category was going to be hard, but it actually wasn’t. Yes it can be very overwhelming and a tad daunting when you put ALL of the books in one place, however it’s a good opportunity to see what you have, corral like books together and organise them in a way that is going to benefit the whole family and make it easier to maintain.

TIP: If you have hundreds of books (and I know of some families who do), simply categorise them into groups – picture books, baby/board books, chapter books, topic/theme books, non-fiction/fiction etc and tackle each category one by one.

Once you have sorted the books, one idea is to start a library system where each child or member of your home can ‘issue’ 4-5 books a week, to keep in a little basket in their room.

Ideally, you want ALL of your books in one place, but that doesn’t work for us. We have, what I think, is a manageable amount of books in our home and our collection will grow over the years, the great thing is, we have systems in place that work (for us), to help us not become overwhelmed. If a book no longer sparks joy, we donate it.

You might also like: My KonMari Journey: BOOKS – my own journey of using the method with my book collection.

Coming Up Next: KonMari With Kids: PAPER (Art Work)
My kids don’t have A LOT of paper (definitely not as much as I did), however they do bring home A LOT of Art Work, so that is what I plan to tackle next. Watch this space.

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I am super excited about this new series ‘KonMari With Kids’ and would love for you to follow along in this process, better yet, join me – Subscribe to my Blog, so you don’t miss a post and together we CAN KonMari With Kids. I will also be sharing my journey on , and , so be sure to follow me there too.

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Reo Pēpi

Posted on February 20, 2017 by gavyn

Reo Pēpi, Killy Brown
This second resource series from Dunedin Te Reo Māori publishers and advocates Killy Brown and Kirsten Parkinson comes in beautiful board format. I find these look sharper than their predecessors (still lovely) in a very clean matte white. These are bilingual (as opposed to Māori language only), with the Māori text in a bold, larger font above its translation. The illustrations are warm and darling, without edges. I think the final pages in each book are a great addition, with each featuring a related glossary and pronunciation guide. I’m a little sad that — like most pronunciation guides for Māori phonetics — it only works for readers with a New Zealand accent, but that’s not a predicament unique to this series! For scale: these are the same size as The Gruffalo board book. I hope frequent reading of these in families may incite improvised play thereafter, because there’s definitely plenty of potential for extension of these. The boxed set would make a beautiful gift for a baby shower, first or second birthday or Aotearoa arrival, but a single pukapuka would also be lovely. Haki has been reading these to all three of our daughters, and Esky (age 7) has been equally happy to listen (and play along) as Mia (3). Check out the close-ups on these lovely covers:

I’m pleased these books are helping to fill a gap in the early childhood Te Reo Māori book market, as there is quite a range of early readers (5years+) in paper available, but nothing that so aptly blends tough, simple and classy as the Brown-Parkinson offering. You can pre-order these direct from the creators here (available in March), along with a range of other related products or if you’re in Dunedin, swing by The University Book Shop to pick up your limited edition.