Most days, I have six children running around my house because of my home daycare. There is one trick that I have implemented that has helped immensely: color coding.

Each child is assigned a color and everything from their cups and plates to their hand towels are in their color. This has been most successful with their cups. In the beginning, I would just hand a kid any old cup, but 10 minutes later I would find a stranded cup and couldn’t remember who I had given it to last. My younger children would just pick up a cup and drink out of it; no matter whose it was. This was not working in the germ department.

So I began searching for solid colored cups that were eco-friendly and BPA/phthalate free and found the Kid Basix Safe Sporter. After my baby gates, these are my next favorite thing around the house. We LOVE our water bottles. They are lightweight, durable and made of food-grade stainless steel which translates into “will stand up to daily use by a toddler”. In all of the spills and drops, only one of our water bottles has slightly dented. They are easy to clean, dishwasher safe, non-leaching and antimicrobial. Awesomeness all around!

Another piece of having a home daycare is the towels used to dry hands. DCFS guidelines allow two options, paper towels or separate hand towels.  Paper towels negate my pursuit of reducing waste and being eco-aware, plus I can’t imagine the cost of keeping them in stock. Thus, I have opted for the separate hand towels.  Each child has a hand towel hanging in the bathroom, in their specific color. All I have to do is throw them in the wash with all of my other cleaning cloths and we are good to go!

Do you have a system that you use to keep your day organized? I would love to hear about it!