We are kind of minimal when it comes to toys. I mean, we don’t deprive our children the joys of playing with things, but we don’t buy a whole lot of things for them. But even though we don’t buy a lot, it seems like we HAVE a lot! And sometimes it can get to be a little overwhelming.
For today’s task, I wanted to accomplish a few things with the girls’ toys:
- Sort them into give, store, and play categories
- Clean them!
- Create a toy rotation system.
To get started I got ALL of the toys in the house together in one area. I turned on a good movie and went to work on sorting. I went through each box, bin, and bag of toys and made some decisions regarding each one. I got rid of toys that were just not useful anymore (too many missing, small parts, broken, etc.). I set aside some to sell or donate soon. I decided what toys needed to take some time on the shelf and which ones needed some more attention. I kept in mind the things I would like to focus on with the girls in the coming weeks and months. The top shelf is for what is most important for the week.
I also divided the toys into two broad categories: baby play and toddler/preschool play. I do realize that since the girls have the same play space, they will play with the same toys, but keeping them in separate spaces really helps when it comes to clean-up. G is amazing at organization for her age. She knows where everything goes. So I didn’t want to mess up the system too much. I kept her high priority bins in the same places they were in before, so she would not have to remember new spots for everything.
And I cleaned all the toys! I used the BabyGanics product for toy cleaning and it works very well. I was able to get some serious gunk off of some of the toys and give the less gunky ones a good general cleaning.
I stored some toys in the garage, creating a toy rotation system that I hope will work for us. I even took away some of the larger gross motor toys out of the play space so I can bring them in as wanted/needed. I also refilled the What’s in the Box box for G. I put in some items that are too small for W to play with (including some jewelery), so she can discover these things when W is not around but I need a minute to do something really quick.
I got some great tips for organizing and rotating toys from the readers of my Facebook page! Thank you to those who made suggestions!
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We just went through the donate, keep, toss… part of toy organizing…. I still feel we have too many! We may need to start a toy rotation again… Love that idea!
I always feel like we have too many toys! They just seem to multiply overnight even after all the efforts to keep them under control! Our girls discovered the toys that I rotated out earlier this week and they are slowly finding their way back into the play area…ack! Time to do it again!