Hopefully you have been following the process and your child has been handing you dishes or you have been handing them dishes to stack in the cabinets and drawers.  This process goes a lot more smoothly if you have organized your kitchen.  Again, this is an exercise in the practicality of the process because if it is too complicated, your early elementary age child is going to get frustrated.

You can begin transitioning from the hand off to letting them take things straight from the dishwasher to where it belongs in the cabinet.  You will definitely need a step stool.  If they find they need to move the stool, get them in the practice of setting the dish on the counter or back in the dishwasher until they move the step stool.  Also, decide if you are comfortable with them climbing on top of the counter to reach a high cabinet shelf.  If you are not, now is the time to give direction.  Otherwise, you may turn your back or step away only to find that you are in fact a parent of a base jumper.

We honestly didn’t mind the climbing.  We would hand dishes to our kids when they were up there as it was helpful to not have to climb ourselves.