Apr 29, 2011

Family Friday: Toy Organization

We have been battling with the craziness that comes with children and toys, you all know what I mean. Piles and piles of toys, toddlers who don't want to pick up their mounds of toys, toys that just get pulled out not to be played with but just to be left on the floor, toys that never get played with, toys that are lost under the mounds of other toys...you get what I'm talking about right!

Well I started out getting rid of anything broken, and toys I noticed he would pull out and not play with.
This still left me with a lot! My next move was to delegate tubs to specific toys, and groups of things he plays with. We only allowed him to have two tubs out at a time, the only problem was if he had the car tub and the animal tub I would end up with two tubs half full of cars and animals.
This gave me my next idea...
I figured out what I wanted in each tub, and made a label for each tub, with picture (because Sam cant read yet) and the words to help him associate the picture with the words. I made two of each label one for the lid and one for the end of the tub. I laminated each card and used adhesive Velcro to attach the card to the tub.
So far it has really helped with toys being put away where they go. When Sam has to many toys out instead of overwhelming him with telling him to just clean up I give him one task like find all the cars and put them in the tub with the picture of a car.
I still have a long way to go with all the toys and he still has WAY more than he needs...so...

What are some things you have found successful with managing the battle with the toys, what has worked, what hasn't?

Here are the labels I made.

Toy Lables

4 comments:

Handsfullmom said...

That's a really great solution!

Ivy@let's get domestic said...

I agree, that is a great solution. Being a mom of four, I battle the same problems and I really like your idea of breaking down the pick up routine so that it is more do-able for the kids.

Crunchy Frugalista said...

These are great tips, I can never seem to keep my kids organized. I found you from the I love my friends online hop. Hope to see you soon at Crunchy Frugalista

Jill said...

It's definitely a great idea to box up and label toys - I found that worked well. But still haven't found the magic solution to getting the kids to keep putting them back into the boxes when they've finished playing with them!

Thanks for linking to a Round Tuit!
Hope you have a great week!
Jill @ Creating my way to Success
http://www.jembellish.blogspot.com/