The special closet should be located within the family room area, if possible. Ours is just outside of our family room by a couple feet so it's still extremely convenient for the kids to access it. The items in the closet should be sorted by "phases". The Core Phase items should be on the lowest shelves and the Love of Learning Phase items should be on the upper shelves. That way the Core kids somewhat look forward to being "big enough" to get into the Love of Learning stuff as they stare at the higher shelves.
The closet should be filled with tons of educational toys/games and should only be accessed during "learning hours", which in our house is 10am-4pm. At four o'clock, the door is closed and the items within it are, for the most part, off limits. It keeps the items within the closet as "things to look forward to", which then helps the kids not to lose interest in them.
Some of the items in our Learners Closet are...
Core Phase: different types of blocks, Legos, puzzles, Leap Pad, animals, foods, tent, learning games...lots & lots of items for imaginary play!
Love of Learning Phase: Love of Learners can use any item from Core Phase along with additional learning games (Monopoly, Boggle, Which Way USA, etc), flash cards, white boards, educational puzzles, WrapUps, play money, arts, crafts, math items, etc.
Here's a picture of our current "Learners Closet"...
It's not fully finished yet but I keep finding wonderful things to add to it. I believe within the next year, I should have it where I'd like it. I'd like to have things such as....Lincoln Logs, more educational games, a "vehicles" tub, a "puppets" tub, and Tinker Toys (hopefully Santa will bring some of these items). In the perfect world, I'll also get that top shelf cleaned off and have that level full of Love of Learner's stuff as well!! I can't wait!!
<3
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