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This week I’ve been busy trying to downsize and organize our collection of toys. I’ve been told that weekly toy bins are the best, or daily totes, or to organize by color. For me, this is the system I’ve decided to try, and I encourage you to use whatever works best for you!
If you are like me, you don’t have time to pick up all the toys day after day. My children are very good about cleaning up, but they are children… And the organization of things easily gets away from them! I’ve been looking for a system for quite a while that would work for us… And now, I think we have found the solution!
First, I looked for storage totes. I wanted clear totes for a few reasons. One reason was that littles could see the items i n the tote without reading a lable. Second, we could easily visualize if the tote was full (toy limit) or not. Lastly, we could see if the wrong toy was put in the wrong place.
Next we sorted all the toys. We had kind of done this in the past but in a mismatched array of cardboard boxes, bags, and baskets that were falling apart from age. We put one type of toy in each tote.
We labeled the totes to help the older children with their reading. And who doesn’t love a nice label?
Then we stacked the totes neatly to await play time! The rule is one tote at a time, and when you take something out, you put it away! So simple!
Our toy categories included blocks, doll house, magnets, plastic people, dress up, Lincoln logs, doll clothes, play food/kitchen, cars and trucks, musical instruments and puzzles.
We also decided to give each child their own “toy chest” for them to keep a collection of whatever personal toys or treasures in. I found a good deal on some inexpensive tool boxes and let the children personalize them with stickers and paint!
Tip- look for sales on totes or online coupons!
My mother always said “A place for everything and everything in its place.” I am a happy Mama Bear knowing that all of our toys now have a place and what once was a chaotic arrangement is now nicely organized… Here’s hoping it stays that way!