One evening, after the kids had gone to bed, my husband and I sorted through all the toys in the playroom. We set a timer for 20mins - it took 40, but was well worth it. We divided everything into four categories:
- Rubbish (broken toys)
- Donate
- Store in attic, for use in toy rotation later
- Keep in playroom
Playroom organisation
As I’m not a fan of having shelves in the playroom with two little climbers in the house, I laid out the toys at an accessible level, on the floor and on boxes. Though I plan to rotate the toys every month, I’ve kept some permanent all-time favourites, like my son’s train track, in boxes. Some toys which create more mess, or which my toddler is most likely to wreck, are stored in bags on the wall with picture signs for what they contain. These they know to ask for.
Results
With fewer toys, I’ve noticed that the kids value each one more and give it the attention it deserves. Laying them out in sets means that they also play with them as sets and put them away the same way. Clean-up can be done without supervision, especially by our 4-year-old. Emotionally, both children seem less overwhelmed and resistant to tidy up at the end of the day. This has sometimes contributed to a more peaceful start to the bedtime routine (what I actually mean by that is that the pre-bedtime hyper state now begins without a clean-up argument!).
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| Unsupervised clean-up by preschooler. As long as the toys are off the floor, I'm happy! |
Also, introducing my preschooler to the concept of donating and sharing with children who don’t have as many toys was a valuable process. It started off with a major melt-down, wanting to hold on to toys he hadn’t even thought about in months, to eventually getting excited that other children would now have new toys to play with and could I please tell them that all the toys had come from him by name when they got them.
Having two little ones I’ve observed what experienced parents already know to be true - that children don’t really need the next big toy or a constant flow of new things to keep them entertained. They can make up hundreds of creative games with the same toys. Also, deep down they value order and predictability in their immediate environment. If their play area is always messy and littered with tiny toys, they find it difficult to focus on a single project, find the pieces they want and effectively learn to share toys.
Of course, our kids can and do get new toys and presents throughout the year. Each toy has the potential to stimulate their understanding and creativity in different ways. But, the older toys go off the rotation for a time, in order to give the new ones a chance.
Notes: Resources on decluttering and rotating toys
On decluttering, I’ve found Dana White’s general steps helpful, which I broadly followed in the categories above.
I also found this informative article on how to rotate toys and incorporate different types of toys to develop all-round skills.