Have you ever cleaned up after your child and look at the number of toys they rarely or never play with? Is your child often bored and rather than playing bugging you?
Here are a few quick solutions to help make your life and your child's a little more productive.
Start as an infant.
Using a small bucket or tote to teach your infant to clean up. Turn it into a game and assist them with clean up after play. It will soon become habit.
Toddlers LOVE to organize and sort, but they also LOVE to destroy. We have tried several different organizational methods and found benefits to each.
Following small buckets for the infant stage:
Our first was a shelf with doll rods and open buckets. This worked great until my toddler quickly learned to empty it all by himself. Our house was very quick to look like a tornado. The doll rods were also not sturdy and were quick to break.
After that we moved on to a really nice shelf made of wood that holds plastic shoe boxes with lids. This is not a perfect solution, but the kids are not near as quick to open every box and dump it where they can. It is also nice because larger toys fit perfectly on the top of the shelf.
Our next purchase was a very large toy box. While developmentally it is not as sound as teaching sorting and organizing, in combination with the shelf it was a perfect match for those big toys and stuffed animals that just didn't fit in a plastic shoe box nice and neatly.
Create "New" Toys
Once you find the perfect solution for toy storage in your home the key is to keep toys fresh. Our boys have a wide range of developmentally appropriate toys, most of which are sorted into plastic shoe boxes with lids on them.
-Mr. Potato Head & Pieces
-Pretend Animals
-Weebles
-Peek-a-Blocks
-Play Dough
-Wooden Building Blocks
-Cars
-Stacking Cups
-Crayons & Stickers
Other things that need larger storage are sorted into large Rubbermaid tubs or plastic drawers.
-Pretend Food & Kitchen Accessories
-Lego Duplo Blocks
-Train Sets
-Tool Sets
-Doll Clothing
-Dress Up Clothes
That just gives you an idea of what you can put into the boxes for your child to play with.
Now to keep your kids busy and not bored with their toys you need to keep them new. When a child gets a new toy they play with it for days, maybe even weeks, but then it often more times than not becomes lost in the mess of other toys. Try rotating every month or so the toys your children have to play with. We simply rotate 2-3 tubs off of the shelf with a few "new" toys every so often and the kids have new toys all over again. If you ever need additional tubs Dollar General & Dollar Tree sell them very cheap and they are higher quality than the ones included.
If you have them happy and busy and a way to organize when they are finished playing what do you do when there just becomes too much? Prior to each birthday & holiday we sift through the boys toys and donate or throw out broken toys, developmentally inappropriate toys, and toys that are no longer played with.
Here are a few quick solutions to help make your life and your child's a little more productive.
Start as an infant.
Using a small bucket or tote to teach your infant to clean up. Turn it into a game and assist them with clean up after play. It will soon become habit.
Toddlers LOVE to organize and sort, but they also LOVE to destroy. We have tried several different organizational methods and found benefits to each.
Following small buckets for the infant stage:
Our first was a shelf with doll rods and open buckets. This worked great until my toddler quickly learned to empty it all by himself. Our house was very quick to look like a tornado. The doll rods were also not sturdy and were quick to break.
After that we moved on to a really nice shelf made of wood that holds plastic shoe boxes with lids. This is not a perfect solution, but the kids are not near as quick to open every box and dump it where they can. It is also nice because larger toys fit perfectly on the top of the shelf.
Our next purchase was a very large toy box. While developmentally it is not as sound as teaching sorting and organizing, in combination with the shelf it was a perfect match for those big toys and stuffed animals that just didn't fit in a plastic shoe box nice and neatly.
Create "New" Toys
Once you find the perfect solution for toy storage in your home the key is to keep toys fresh. Our boys have a wide range of developmentally appropriate toys, most of which are sorted into plastic shoe boxes with lids on them.
-Mr. Potato Head & Pieces
-Pretend Animals
-Weebles
-Peek-a-Blocks
-Play Dough
-Wooden Building Blocks
-Cars
-Stacking Cups
-Crayons & Stickers
Other things that need larger storage are sorted into large Rubbermaid tubs or plastic drawers.
-Pretend Food & Kitchen Accessories
-Lego Duplo Blocks
-Train Sets
-Tool Sets
-Doll Clothing
-Dress Up Clothes
That just gives you an idea of what you can put into the boxes for your child to play with.
Now to keep your kids busy and not bored with their toys you need to keep them new. When a child gets a new toy they play with it for days, maybe even weeks, but then it often more times than not becomes lost in the mess of other toys. Try rotating every month or so the toys your children have to play with. We simply rotate 2-3 tubs off of the shelf with a few "new" toys every so often and the kids have new toys all over again. If you ever need additional tubs Dollar General & Dollar Tree sell them very cheap and they are higher quality than the ones included.
If you have them happy and busy and a way to organize when they are finished playing what do you do when there just becomes too much? Prior to each birthday & holiday we sift through the boys toys and donate or throw out broken toys, developmentally inappropriate toys, and toys that are no longer played with.
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