How to tidy your room (for kids!): Cushelle’s top tips on how to clean your room

It’s satisfying to see your little one balance that last building block atop the leaning tower of impending doom you've so carefully constructed together. Even if it only stays standing three seconds, leaving you buried under colourful building-block chaos. You do so much for your family, from playtime to cleanup – so wouldn’t it be nice if tidying up your room didn’t have to feel like a chore? And wouldn’t it be even nicer if it wasn’t actually your chore, at all? With these tidy bedroom ideas and downloadable tidying chart, kids will learn how to tidy your room – fast! 

So, grab the biscuits, sit back, hand us over to the kids and enjoy that rest! After all you do, you deserve it. 

For kids: Plan out how to clean your room 

So, it’s time to tidy your room. Now, it might be tempting to tidy up your room by hiding all your toys under the bed and stuffing your clothes into any drawer, but you’ll feel much more satisfied if you do a thorough job. First thing’s first, if you're not sure what needs tidying, ask! Do you want to be able to see all of the floor? Should you get your dirty clothes ready to wash? Should you make your bed? With these room cleaning tips, you’ll get there in no time – so you can get back to the important things: having fun!

Let’s start with these tidy bedroom ideas:

1. Put all toys in their places
2. Throw rubbish in the bin
3. Put dirty clothes in the laundry basket
4. Fold clean clothes and put them away in my wardrobe
5. Put away the pens, pencils, crayons and paper on my desk
6. Make the bed – and maybe ask for clean linen!

And it’s as simple as that. Once you’ve checked off everything off your list, that’s it! You can declare your room tidy – and then it’s time to call in the big guns in and see if they agree! 

Find out where everything goes

Knowing how to tidy your room starts with finding a place for everything to live. Here’s a good starting point:  

• Clothes go in the wardrobe or the chest of drawers  
• Rubbish goes in the bin 
• Books go on shelves
• Pens and pencils go in pencil pots

If you’re not sure where something goes, you can ask your parents or an older brother or sister. Clever storage ideas are key when tidying up your room. Re-use empty boxes to keep little things like toy figures, art supplies, jewellery, or anything you don’t want to lose – just make sure you label them clearly, so you know what’s inside.  

Tidy up your room (and make it fun)

You'll be pleased to hear that chores don’t have to be boring – or lengthy. Knowing how to tidy your room fast will come naturally if you make a fun game out of it. Here are a few ideas for how to tidy your room without getting bored: 

• Set a timer for 10 minutes and see how much you can clear away in that time. If you’ve got brothers or sisters, why not make it a competition?
• Pick a colour and look for things of that colour to tidy away. When you’ve run out of things in that colour, take a quick break and move onto a different one.
• Put on some songs you love while you tidy your room. Singing and dancing along makes tidying up go much faster! Or, if you’d rather, put an audio book or podcast on.
• Set up a mini recycling station to make cleaning up easier (and recycling more fun!). Collect recyclable items in your designated bins throughout the week, and then empty it all in one go. 

Keep up the good work

Knowing how to clean your room doesn’t end after you’ve done it just once. It’ll be much easier to tidy up your room next time if you’re always on the look-out for things to put away as you play. You can keep your game going by challenging yourself to find and put away 10 things every day before you have your dinner, and you’ll be surprised by how much easier it is to tidy up your room when you’ve been doing that for a while! 

Here’s the last of our room-cleaning tips: print out our guide and add stickers to it. Maybe, if you get enough stickers on the chart, you might even be able to wangle yourself a little treat for your hard work at the end of the month – after all, you deserve it! 

Now that you have a tidy room, you don’t have to stop there! Why not tackle the rest of the house and take a look at our guide to organising the home? We’ve got tips on storage ideas for your bathroom and how to make DIY makeup organisers.