I have a chronic coloring-book-overflow problem at my house. I buy them at the dollar store, the kids are always excited to see a new one, and they get used for months. (Best use of a dollar ever? Possibly.) However, once you get enough coloring books you start to have a serious storage problem. Add to that the fact that once a book has been more than half-filled with scribbles, the kids suddenly lose interest in it, and you have more than enough reason to start periodic “refreshing.”
Refreshing your coloring books is simple, but very effective. About once a year I take half an hour and go through all the coloring books and tear out any pages that have been scribbled on both sides, any games that have been played, etc. (I’ve just started leaving in ones that have been colored very nicely, because Max and Charlie are old enough that they’ve started coloring neatly and they like to go back and look at what they’ve done.) All of a sudden, a coloring book that had “nothing” left to color or do is full of clean pages! The kids’ interest is engaged again, the coloring books take up less space on the shelf, and it helps me to see which coloring books have been used so completely they should go to the trash instead. It’s just a simple little thing, but it makes a big difference!
