By Mrs. Canadian Renegade
The Dilemma
I wish I could tell you I was a minimalist with a pristine home, and perfectly curated collection of wooden toys for my children. I have so much respect for these dreamy spaces because they are filled with thoughtfulness and purpose.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm a borderline hoarder. I have bins piled up in the basement with labels like, "Aimee's Crap" and "Need to Sort". I have bins of stuff to sell, stuff to donate, and clothes to organize. The sky-high piles are overwhelming and suffocating, and we are on a mission to purge, reduce, and repurpose our space. But, it's kind of a slow process with four kids under four.
Duplo is by far the most played with set in our kids collection. They're bigger than Lego which is perfect for smaller children. This is a great example of open ended play and you can see some of our kids creations on the right. Duplo is one toy we don't mind adding to since it's used so much and fosters focus and problem solving skills.
So what exactly does my mess have to do with toys? For one, I don't want my kids to suffer from the same crippling anxiety I experience when it comes to sorting through the collection of stuff I have managed to accumulate over the years. Secondly, research shows that kids are more focused and imaginative when they aren't being over stimulated with jam packed toy rooms. And quite frankly, it's up to me to create their space, the kind of environment they can thrive in.
Problem Solving
I admit, we let our toys get out of hand. Our family is incredibly generous and we had a hard time setting firm boundaries around gift giving. We've begun exploring different methods to reducing incoming gifts such as a fiver party where guests were asked to bring no more than five dollars for the kids to spend at a later date.
While the fiver party was helpful for minimizing toys, and the kids had an amazing time at the toy store, the downfall came when we had to guide them to making a decision. They ended up choosing toys that were eye-catching but didn't hold their interest for very long. In fact, those toys are among those they interact with the least.
Top left: Wooden building toys and tools. Bottom left: magnetic tiles. Right: the kids containment project where they removed all of the wooden parts and reused the container to perfectly organize their magnetic tiles.
Another method we explored was curating a gift registry with options that we felt would be beneficial to cultivating dexterity, problem solving, and imaginative play. Most of our selection was focused on open-ended play. If you're unfamiliar with the term open-ended toys, the concept boils down to toys that can not only be played with in a variety of ways but will also grow with your children.
We made sure our list had varying price points to accommodate any budget and we set a limit of maximum one item per child. Our combined families are large though so we had another influx of toys but at least this time they had more purpose.
The Rotation
Even after pairing down a significant amount of toys, we found our collection to be substantial. We also knew that as the big kids outgrew their toys, the babies would grow into them. Not wanting to buy toys twice, we decided to store the toys in limbo in the basement to be taken out as they become more age appropriate.
These wooden trucks, trailers, and accessories are beautifully crafted but are currently hit and miss right now with the big kids but the babies really like the simple emergency vehicles in the set.
We had two toy towers in the kids room in addition to closet space and the options had become too great for the kids to remain focused. Each day, it felt like the kids were attempting to play with absolutely everything in their room. The result was a fast descent into total chaos. Even if we cleaned throughout the day, we still found ourselves cleaning again come night time and we were growing resentful.
A radical change was needed and so we introduced the toy rotation. After purging a few boxes of toys we decided to keep roughly a third of the remaining toys upstairs and the other items were kept in the basement. One toy tower was removed from their room and used as extra storage. Now, about once a week, we swap an assortment of toys.
We have a large bin of assorted animals as well as another bin of dinosaurs. Each are playtime favourites but need to be rotated for sheer volume. We also have an assortment of cars, trains, and wooden tracks. They used to need us to assemble the train tracks but now that they're nearly four they're starting to build their own lines.
@alexanderfarm gave me insight into choosing toys that matched the particular area of focus they were working through, also known as a schema. I tend to mix and match but always keep in mind their latest interest. I also like to include items that imitate real life like toy food, dishes, and baby dolls.
The Result
Brilliance. Honestly, I braced myself for total melt downs upon discovering their newly organized and much more sparse room. Instead, they walked through with wonder and curiosity. Right away, I noticed that the kids were playing with their toys more creatively and for longer periods of time than before.
Clean up takes much less time to achieve but could still use improvement. I tried to schedule toy rotation - because schedules are the key to survival with my tiny brood of multiples - but it wasn't sustainable. Now, whenever I notice the kids getting more irritated with each other than usual I'll suggest switching things up.
These remote controlled cars were an impulsive Christmas purchase. They're loud, annoying, coming out rarely and are on my toy hitlist. The magnetic dress up doll on the right was put away for about a year because it was gifted too early in development. When it's out she get dressed at wake up time and before bed. When I notice the pieces getting scattered I know it's time to disappear again for a little while.
Those little geniuses even recognize when they need a change of pace and ask for swaps too. And, my favourite part of toy rotation is how excited they get when they discover its happened without warning. They really settle in to explore and this mama gets a temporary slice of peace.
Even though the changes we made were substantial I know there is more work to be done. Most of the loud, flashing, obnoxious toys disappeared and haven't been missed. Some are still hanging around with targets on their back for when I can muster up another purge.
The toy room transformation was a large project but we are all better for it.
Here are a few of the kids creations. They can often be found using magnetic tiles, wooden blocks, or Duplo to build farm fences for animals and housing for their figurines. You can see the wooden peg people I painted for the kids in a cozy house in the picture on the left.
Want to see more of our collection? Let me know in the comments and I'll take a deeper dive into the variety of items in our rotation.
