Now that Christmas is over, the inevitable question lingers – what to do with all those new toys? Never fear, our in-house professional organizer Annie has us covered with some pro tips and she’s here today to help us launch our month-long mission to make 2014 our best year yet. Here are her pearls of wisdom…
If you feel you’re in an ever-losing battle with your children’s games and toys, take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone. I’ve encountered few families who haven’t had some difficulty navigating the toy jungle.
Before we talk toy storage, I would be remiss if I didn’t call your attention to quantity. It is vastly important that the amount of toys and games your child has to play with is reasonable.
Not only does having a crazy amount of toys create chaos and intrude upon the likelihood that you or your children will be able to maintain order of them, it also overwhelms kids. They’re human, just like you and I. Their attention spans may be slightly less expansive, but they can still only do one thing at a time.
You can encourage healthy play, more effectively teach clean-up skills, and actually keep your kids more entertained if you limit the number of toys and games in the playroom. Figure out how many toys or games can reasonably fit within the space you’ve allotted, and put the excess in storage–preferably in clear, labeled bins.
You can give every toy and game a longer lifespan if you keep them on a rotation system; each time a toy is re-introduced into the mix, children will be utterly fascinated all over again. See more on our ideas on how to set up said toy rotation system here.
I’ve found that a combination of shelves or cubbies and baskets or bins are ideal when it comes to organizing play items. That way, larger more sturdy items, such as board games or books, can sit or be stacked directly on the shelves, while smaller items, like doll clothing, wooden blocks, etc., can be collected into containers.
Board games are especially prone to loss of parts. Avoid this by teaching children to play with only one game at a time, and putting each away before pulling out another. You can also collect small game pieces in ziploc bags to avoid them falling out of the boxes.
Sort small play items in categories, and designate a bin or basket for each. Work with children to understand how to divide and recognize these groupings by implementing a kid-friendly labeling system. Depending upon your child’s developmental stage, label storage containers with either words, pictures, or even by a color system.
Very small pieces, such as legos, can be kept in plastic containers with lids, as can messier things like arts and crafts supplies.
Larger toys or play things belonging to larger collections (such as the dress-up collection seen below) can be stored in a chest, or large wheeled baskets.
Always use height as your determining factor when deciding where to place various toys and games. If you want kids to be able to reach books on their own, keep them on lower shelves. Games with small parts, art kits that you don’t want a little one spontaneously undertaking, and so on can be kept on higher shelves.
Hopefully these tips will have your child’s playroom looking neat and inviting!
More Helpful MPMK How-Tos from this month:
- Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life: Principles of an Organized Playroom
- Our Top Ideas for Living Better from 2013
- 5 Step Guide to Jump Starting Your Diet in 2014
- Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life: Entryway Organization (3 Must-Haves from Our Professional Organizer)
- Must-Reads: 8 Books for a Better 2014
- Top 10 Meal Planning & Kitchen Organization Ideas
Annie