Bucket Destruction

Hi, this is brand new blog devoted to early childhood issues.  My name is Natalie Wade.  I have a masters in Family and Consumer Science with an emphasis in Child and Family Studies from the University of Tennessee at Martin.  My bachelor's degree is in Business:  Organizational Management. That makes me an odd little duck in the early childhood community.  This blog will deal with the everyday issues that all childcare providers face.  Today's topic:  Bucket Destruction.

The Problem
I know we all face this problem.  We spend good money on storage containers to keep our childcares clean and orderly just to have the children dump all the toys out of the buckets and play with the buckets.  This wouldn't be a big problem if they didn't destroy the buckets in the process.  Storage containers cost money, and it is a problem to be constantly replacing buckets.  I know we all have resorted to duct tape and whatever else to get as much use from the buckets before we have to give up and throw them away.  What would you say if I told you I have not had to replace a bucket in 5 years?

The Man Factor
Before I tell you how I have accomplished this, let me take a quick moment to talk about the source of the idea that brought about these results.  This idea came from my husband.  We cannot deny that men think differently than women.  Men go straight to the heart of the matter without regard for many of the details we women consider so important.  However, I have learned to never dismiss one of my husband's suggestions out of hand.  It is usually never what I would have done, but if I ponder it and ask myself the question, "why not?" I can usually just tweek his suggestion a little and have a wonderful solution.  My point - Listen to the men.  Early childhood is a female dominated profession and we could use some man suggestions from time to time.

Bolting Down the Buckets
With that said, the way we solved this problem was to bolt the buckets down to the shelves.  Your first reaction is probably going to be the same as the early childhood specialists when we told them what we planned to do - "What about accessibility?'  Well, the buckets we used were not even half as tall as the shelves allowing the children easy access to every toy in every bucket on every shelf.  The only thing unaccessible to the children was the buckets.

That First Day
The first day after we bolted all the buckets down, we sat back and watched how the children would react to not being able to get the buckets off the shelves.  Those children tried everything to get those buckets to move to no avail.  They finally, after nearly an hour, removed toys from the buckets and played.  Before we bolted down the buckets, the toys were usually just dumped and never touched.  After we bolted down the buckets, the children discovered all the toys we had provided for them.  Of course, there is value in playing with empty buckets, but we now provide lots of empty containers like coffee containers for them to play with.  If those get destroyed, they can be replaced for free.

This is the first of what I hope to be a valuable resource for childcare providers.  Those of us in the trenches understand that sometimes solutions that come from those who don't do this job everyday just don't work very well.  I still run a small childcare in my home, which hopefully will give my suggestions more credence.  If you have any topics you would like to see me discuss, feel free to suggest it in the comments section.  Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457