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Did anyone else take advantage of Target’s Black Friday deal on board games? When we saw that board games were 50% off we went buck wild in the store. When the deal went live, we stocked our game closet with staple games for kids and adults. Madden lucked out the most. He got some awesome games I remember wanting as a kid, like Mouse Trap. Our best purchase was Catan. If you haven’t played, you are missing out. Catan is originally almost $50, so this was our time to invest and we got it for an actual steal ($24.99).
Right after we got all of our board games, it was all we wanted to do! We had competitions and currently have a stats board of who wins which game. Catan is our favorite game to play together and with others. If you have never played, it is a cross between Monopoly and Risk; you are strategizing to get build settlements and gather resources. Bruce and I both have really good problem solving skills and that plays to your benefit when strategizing in games like Catan and Battleship. We get very into games like this, to the point where we may or may not argue.
Madden really enjoys board games and for this, I am thankful. Board games help teach and reinforce important life skills. Following directions, first and foremost, is the easiest thing to practice when playing board games with your family. We reinforce counting as we play games like Trouble, and Pop the Pig. There is always the good lesson of "You don't always win" when playing games as well. Madden is an only child so he only has Bruce and I to learn from. Madden also has a Sensory Processing Disorder, so many of the games double as OT activities and self-regulation strategies.
Now that our closet was fully stocked with board games, my anxiety kicked in each time we would play a new game. Some games don’t go back into the box as well as when they first game out. The boxes begin to rip, especially if you have a barbarian toddler that Hulk Smashes everything in his path. Have you ever tried to get the game Mouse Trap to go back inside the box? It is literally impossible. There can't be a single person on the planet that can keep Mouse Trap clean and organized. If you can do it, kudos to you. It is already a challenge to put together. Our box was always bulging or we were trying to find a method to making sure all the pieces were flat before putting it away. It was a nightmare, and ultimately it ended in a ripped box. Hungry Hungry Hippos is another one! The hippos are super cute until you are trying to get them to get into their place and in that box. The balls have a special storage area under the board, but the second that sucker comes loose, you are chasing red and yellow balls for the rest of your life. We currently are missing 4!
This is our game closet in its natural habitat. My anxiety was at an all time high when I took this picture. Game pieces, puzzles, baggies and other items have gathered on the shelves and on the floor. At one point, Connect Four had been placed wrong-side-up and little red tokens tinked all over the ground. Each time we go to grab a game, the tower of boxes tumbles down on top of you and you spend 5 minutes trying to keep the boxes in some sort of organized fashion. The bottom of the closet is random cleaning storage that I can’t seem to fit anywhere else, such as the mop and the air filters for the HVAC. I have a twitch just thinking about it.
Searching for a Solution
I knew there had to be a solution for this board game debacle. Ripped board game boxes and missing pieces have been an issue for decades, so surely there is a product out there that will ease my anxiety. While scouring the internet for a viable solution, I came across something that instantly sparked my attention. I found these amazing zipper pouches that were designed for protecting and organizing documents. As a teacher, I was instantly intrigued. I had never seen something like it before. How cool would it be to take home important paperwork and not have the last few remaining drops of your coffee in your cup spill over it? How many times had I graded papers and brought them back to look like my toddler had played trashketball with them? I did a deep dive into the descriptions and reviews and realized that this was the product I was searching for. This was my board game saviour.
Let me introduce to you the Sunee Zipper Pouches. They are made from a durable PVC mesh that is strong and waterproof. The original size is 9x13, and is meant for storing and traveling with documents. computer-sized paper fits PERFECTLY! When I saw these, I ran to the closet and began measuring the board games we had. Would they fit in a 9x13 sized bag? Some games are super awkward-shaped, like Pop the Pig (that guy has a chef had and a pot-belly) or Mouse Trap (sure, the game board isn't too big but the pieces?!). Back to deep diving, and I see THEY COME IN VARIOUS SIZES. Bigger, smaller, tiny.... There is even a portfolio sized bag! (Where are my teachers at? This is perfect for anchor charts!!!). This is it ya'll. This was my saving grace. I added them to my Amazon cart, and patiently waited for them to be delivered.
Organizing the Games
When my bags got here, I had the day off work and had the house to myself. Madden was at daycare, Bruce was at work....just me and the fur-babes. I put on some Machine Gun Kelly and got to organizing. Cleaning and reorganizing is my Zen. If I could make a career out of organizing and cleaning, I would. It makes me SO HAPPY. This day, I could jam to my favorite album, drink my coffee, and solve my game board problem without any interruption.
I started by removing everything and organized it into 3 different piles; board games, puzzles, and learning materials.
Then, I began sorting the board games into the proper sized bag. I made sure to place the instructions pamphlet facing out so that we could easily read the name of the game. I considered cutting the name off the box, but I think a vinyl sticker would be easier (and a fun new project). Many of mine were in the 9x13 or 10x14 sized bags. The smaller bags were perfect for games with cards or many pieces. The long, skinny bags were the best size for card games like Phase 10 and Skip Bo. Bigger card games, like Cards Against Humanity fit very well in the smaller red bags. Awkward games like Pop the Pig needed a larger bag than expected, due to how wide the pig is.
After all of the games had a home, I needed to find an organization system in the closet! I got these awesome trapezoidal baskets designed for closets. They are shorter in the front of the basket for shorties like me that have to stand on tip-toes, carry a step-stool, or tilt the basket so that the contents fall out.
I kept everything organized according to the pile they were placed in. I turned the baskets in order to fit two on one shelf. This tapered look works perfectly for finding a game and putting it back neatly. The board games were on the bottom shelf in the bigger basket, organized from left to right in size order. The games on the left are not in bags. Jumanji is a wooden, foldable game board, Mandalorian Monopoly has a "special" box according to my husband, and Catan has so many pieces that we want to get a few more of the smaller bags to keep it organized.
The next shelf up has two smaller baskets. The basket on the left has remaining board games that were smaller, organized from back to front in size order. The left basket has all of the puzzles, and are organized from size of bag from left to right. Learning materials were purged, and left in their containers for easy grab-and-go.
Testing the Theory
Other Uses for The Zipper Bags
I reorganized our family documents to be in zipper pouches. I have an organizer for these documents, however, we are in central Florida and are prone to hurricanes. Having the documents in a water safe bag would be extremely ideal. All of our tax information from previous years can be sealed into 1 bag! I put the zipper pouches inside hanging green folders and now everything is even more organized than before.
There is a 9x13 bag in my school backpack for special documents I don’t want ruined. I have a tendency to overfill my backpack and my papers tend to get crinkled corners or accidently smushed by something else. This zipper bag helps prevent that! My bad habit at school is also hoarding every coffee cup I own in my classroom then bringing them home to be washed all at once. When this happens, I tend to get residual coffee spills on things.
Have you ever saved a critical receipt, and found out the hard way it got water stains, or the sun lightened the font and it was unreadable? I keep one of the pouches in our home office to organize receipts. We just redid our floors in the master bedroom and we kept the receipt inside a zipper pouch, and were able to quickly locate it when we had extra flooring to return.
I have used the portfolio bag to hold anchor charts. When 3:45 hits at work, I usually am out the door. I have a tendency to bring stuff home and work on it during TV time or after bedtime for Madden, and this bag has reduced the number of errors I have to correct on my anchor charts.
