One of the most important things I have learnt over the years is that if you want to teach kids something, its best to start very early.
When children are young they love to help and if we make the jobs fun for them then we all benefit.
I believe that organization is one of the main keys to teach kids to be tidy and put things away.
The first place I would start to get organized would be in the childs bedroom.
I love the idea of writing BIG labels or painting BIG words on their drawers with the name of the article that goes into each drawer.
For Example, one drawer would say knickers or underpants, another would say tee shirts or tops and another would say shorts or pants.
I would also paint each word in a different primary color so that when the child is very young you could say this top goes in the red drawer.
As she gets older you would say "please put the top in the top drawer".
I love Big Bins to store toys in.
I would also label or paint a word onto each bin in a different primary color.
Again you would have a bin for puzzles and another bin for dolls.
Having everything organized makes it so easy for children to see where everything is meant to stay.
Every evening before bathtime, its a great idea to have a 10 minute cleanup.
Maybe you will have a big bin in the room where the children play during the day.
You make a game of getting everything up off the floor and in to the bin in 10 minutes.
Once that job is finished then kids have a quite time in the bath and then bed.
Young children love to help fold clean clothes up.
Remember even thought they may not do the job as well as you do, just be very happy that they are helping as they will get better as they get older.
After everything is folded then its into the bedroom to put things away in the correct drawers.
If you make it fun, then kids will love to help you tidy up.