Originally Posted by WyoDaycareMom:
If you are having someone make shelves for you, I would base the design off of what type of containers you plan on using to store your toys. At one time I had one of those shelves that the buckets kind of sat in on the slanted shelves. Those did not work out for me! I now use the buckets on the standard 2 shelf units that can be purchased at the big box stores. I have two of them. Books go on the bottom shelf, and the other two shelves have buckets on them of which I rotate toys. I also put puzzles, playdough or coloring items on the top of the shelf, that also gets rotated. One shelf is in our front closet where I also store nap mats and toys get switched between it and the other shelf, the other shelf is out and accesible at all times, though they do need to ask to use items on the top shelf. I definately have dumping going on with the available buckets but it is with the 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 age range, and frankly I think that is a developmental stage that while annoying, is just what they do. I have never had anyone try to climb the shelves, but have had them try to climb the kitchen! Books here are turned into laptaops. They take one for the monitor and one for the keyboard and set them up and type on them. Drives me batty, as I think books are not toys, but hey, they are using their imaginations! I think if you only have 6 kids, I wouldn't worry about having a lot of shelves and having lots of toys available. I think it just makes more work for constantly cleaning up, and I don't think kids get as engaged because there is just to much stuff. I have 4 large buckets that contain dolls, lego's, foam blocks, and teddy bears, that I rotate out as well. Long story short, I would strongly consider what type of storage buckets you want to utilize and build your shelves from there!
I actually purchased some white buckets from Fleet Farm that I want to use. I was determined to stick to the second-smallest size from their collection of five buckets, but then realized that I could use the smallest size bucket when I purchased Black Friday Lego Duplos. They only filled up half the bucket! I'm at a toss up between returning what I got and buying the smallest sized bucket. I only plan on having 4-8 buckets out at a time, guessing I could have four on a shelf. I want to have larger blocks on the bottom shelves because babies can play with those too.
Here is a book shelf I am considering to have built...much cheaper too!
This has a dry erase back to it, but I was thinking about either a magnetic back if I need to use the bookshelf as a section divider or just have the back be plain wood to have it against the wall.
http://www.kaplanco.com/store/trans/...12|0&PID=47147
For toy shelves. I was thinking of something more along these lines......I don't really want something just for a bunch of bins. I don't want it to feel like a manipulatives classroom. This one is a 30 inch tall shelf similiar to our current daycare, but the kids currently climb and stand on this one at work (except this is single and the one at work is a double, so it's wider and probably more inviting to stand on)
http://www.kaplanco.com/store/trans/...10|0&PID=48044