Innovative Solution

“Put the blocks back, otherwise you will not be allowed to play with them again!” threatened my older brother. This was not the first time, and probably, would not be the last.

I love playing with LEGOs, but I just don’t like to put them back! I love playing with my foam blocks and cars too! My mom keeps telling me to clean up after I play, but I just can’t seem to do it. Cleaning up my toys just takes too long! Then when I want to play again, I need to get them out of their box again and remake what I was making earlier.

One month after I turned seven, I was given a final warning by my parents; the blocks would be taken away if I didn’t put them back. This was not acceptable to me, or to my brothers. I have two older brothers and I have a lot of hand-me-downs from them, especially toys. I love it, but that also means that I have limited space to keep everything organized and if I’m not careful things can get messy very quickly.

I tried hard to put things away, but some pieces were always left behind. Then my older brother and mother came up with an idea! They gave me an old flannel sheet, and told me to spread my blocks on the sheet when I was playing. That way, all my blocks would remain on the sheet and then it would be easy for me to put them back. Also, if blocks started going off the sheet, then it would just mean that I had too many out. Well, this plan solved part of my problem but not all of it. I still had to do the boring task of putting them back in!

One day while I was just about to finish playing, my older brother came running in excitedly and said, “Clean up quickly! If we clean up this area in the next five minutes, we get a movie night! I’ll help you.” He looked at the whole mess of blocks big and small. ”Hmm…alright!” he said, “Hold the corners of the sheet from one side and I‘ll hold it from the other.”

My other brother was there too and all three of us lifted the sheet, brought it together with all the blocks inside and then my brother held it like a big bundle and put it all inside the box and put the lid on. Wow! I thought, “That was unbelievably smart.”

I just loved the idea! Unfortunately, my brothers were not always available to help when I needed them. After a lot of thinking I cut holes in the corners of the sheet and then brought the corners to the center and tried lifting. Well… it worked a bit, but the blocks still fell out because one of the corners slipped!

My grandma visited us in the summer, and she had this really cute coin bag that had a cord around it, and when you pulled at the cord the sides and corners came together. To open, you just needed to pull the sides apart. I shared my block problem with her and asked her if something like that could be done with my sheet.

My grandmom is just great at knitting and sewing. She understood the issue and helped me out. Now I have my wonderful playmat, or play-sheet. All I do after I’m done playing is bring the corners of the sheet towards the center and pull the cord and I get a bundle like Santa! What would take more than 45 minutes, now takes five!

My best friend saw it and now also wants one. I think I’ll name my innovation “The Smart Playmat!”