Toy Rotation Day

I love organization. It brings calm and reduces the chaos in my home. One particular thing I TRY to keep organized are the toys! I accomplish this through toy rotation! This is not an easy task with four sets of very busy little hands in our house. As you'll see from some of the pictures, the organization is not neat but its organized. The toys are contained and up on shelves ready to be rotated! This is mainly for the benefit of my 2 and 3 year old.

Purpose of Toy Rotation:

1. It reduces how often and how much we have to clean up. More on how we do cleanup here.

2. It gives me a visual/auditory on the Little's at all times. They share rooms with their older siblings which means these rooms are full of specials that belong to the big kids. So toys for the Little's are rotated into the front living room. They rarely play in their bedrooms unless I'm in there with them. 

3. It allows for boredom! Yes! Being bored is beneficial. It's important for our children to learn that they don't need to be entertained at all moments of their waking hours. This is not reality so why should we try to maintain that? 

4. It encourages imagination and creative exploration. When my kids have less to choose from (really this means less to dump out and walk away from) they stay engaged longer. 

5. It renews their interest. When the toys are rotated, the kids play with them like its a new toy!!! If they had access to all the toys all the time; the interest would be lacking.

How Its Accomplished: 

1. Zip lock bags. I place similar toys into Ziploc bags. For example hard blocks would go into one bag or pieces to a puzzle will go in another bag or pretend items like phones and cameras and keys will go into another bag.

2. These bags are placed on shelves in the children's bedrooms. It does get unorganized as the months go on. So I occasionally go through the pile of bags for Goodwill purposes. 

3. I have chosen Tuesdays as the day to rotate toys. Tuesday toy day! I simply grab a basket and deliver the current toys to their destination on the closet shelves. Then I grab 5-10 items for this weeks exploration. As the week drags on more toys are added to this via the kids bringing more toys from their bedroom or me sensing a need for more focused play.

4. Here are an example of items I might include:

• Cars
• Puzzles
• Blocks (soft, hard, magnetic, Legos)
• pretend play items like phones, baby dolls and accessories, play food and the play kitchen, etc. 
• books 

Other activities we might include in our week:

* Outside play: walking, biking, etc

* Drawing and painting

* Sand 

* Play dough

* Indoor gross motor: tunnels,   

     trampoline, etc. 

* You Tube learning videos 

* Reading books 
* Loose parts play

Added Benefit: Toy rotation entertains your older children too. This week, my 9 and 6 year old came home from school and immediately started playing with the "new" toys!

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