You may have caught my Instagram story a few weeks ago on the day I was organizing the toy cupboard in our playroom.
I recently purchased new tubs that took full advantage of our big shelves. Previously I had quite a lot of empty space and these new tubs enabled us to fit twice as many toys into the same cupboard. - freeing up room to play within the playroom.
My best advice for managing your childrens' toys is to decide early on in their life on a few broad themes that reflect different types of play. Choose a quality brand or type of toy that represents that theme and try to stick to that when you make new toy purchases.
Also, think about the type of play that is encouraged from the toys.
For example, selecting just Duplo and Lego for 'construction play' enabled us to 'rule out' many other options. If a new toy did not offer any new style of play that was encouraged using Lego bricks, we did not need it. The result is quite a good selection of Lego and Duplo and deep meaningful play sessions from the good supply of equipment that works together.
When I sorted out the new toy tubs I:
- emptied our old ones onto the floor
- cleared the cupboard
- measured the shelves, particularly the depth and height
- sourced new boxes (I got these ones from Bunnings, here in Australia)
- sorted the pile of toys on the floor into 3 sections - junk to throw, toys to donate and toys to keep
- sorted the 'keep' into themes/styles of play, keeping in mind the play that I had witnessed my children engaging in over the last 6 months
- distributed all the toys into the new tubs
- printed and attached new labels (I used full sheet sized printable sticky paper)
We love having our toys sorted. It helps my children make great choices for new play, quickly and easily. It also encourages them to pack away and keep our playroom tidy.
One rule I taught my children (from crawling age) was never to climb up furniture in the house and to ask for things to be lifted from high shelves by an adult. I am blessed to have very well behaved children and we have never had a problem with the boxes being pulled down, but this is also something to keep in mind with little ones.
If you would love the labels for your toy boxes too head over to my TpT store to download them.
Have a great day!
- Mel x