I'm a little frightened for today

[Meyou]

I took away all the toy buckets and set everything up as sets last night in the playroom. This morning the playroom will be open and will officially be "dumping" free. I'm a leeeeetle scared. I hope it goes well. I've been weaning down the buckets for storage for 2 weeks now and took the last 5 away last night.

What am I getting myself into?? ::

[godiva83]

My fingers are crossed for you
I am in the process have doing something like this also- my kids are constantly 'dumping'

[Meyou]

So far so good. I had to get one of them to pick up blocks that she dumped just to dump but other than that they're playing well. The only buckets left and 3 for 3 types of blocks.

[nannyde]

I've been doing no dumping for 18 years. It's very easy to teach them to "take out" not "dump out".

I don't have anything in my playroom that can be dumped. I teach them to not touch or move the toy box or toy containers. They stay fixed and the kids take out what they want. The containers that have a zillion little pieces are by invite only. When they get them they cherish them.

Taking things out one by one... playing with them... and then sorting and returning one by one is excellent exercise both fine and gross motor wise and teaches them how to sort .

Never underestimate the calming effect of doing the "work" and getting back exactly what you have put out. Also the collective exercise of one by one... in combo with floor based play... will WEAR THEM OUT.

Think snoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooze during nap time.

[Cat Herder]

The containers that have a zillion little pieces are by invite only. When they get them they cherish them.

This is the key.

I do the same with books and puzzles.

[nannyde]

This is the key.

I do the same with books and puzzles.

Years ago I invested in a Playmobil collection. It was a lot of money upfront but so worth it for the older kids. When I pull them out I don't hear a peep from them for hours. If I had that out it would be a huge mess in a second.

I put out a full size white sheet and they take the pieces out one by one. They LOOK at each piece. They pick their favorite soldiers, horses, ships, etc. They will sit for hours assembling them. When they are done they disassemble everything and put it back.

HOURS of fun.

Dumping the bin would be a few seconds of high excitement and fifteen minutes of putting it back with a lot of adult supervision. I don't see the value in either one of these.

When they learn to take out one by one and put back the same way they APPRECIATE the toy.

[Meyou]

I already have books, puzzles and coloring materials by invitation but I think I'll add two of the three styles of blocks. They're already duplo trained and never move that toy box or dump it out so I can leave that one. They can have access at anytime to these things but with bum firmly planted at the table first. I'll add a little block area to that.

My kids tend to play with sets and "guys" and the extras get dumped, scattered and ignored so I've removed most of those for now. I'm going to put them back into the sets one at a time rather than overwhelm them with complicated setups right away. I have a set of "guys" that are similar to the old fisherprice ones but larger. They have wooden heads. <3

It's going well. There is very little mess and we have only had one disagreement in the past 2 hours.

[iheartkids]

So I'm a little lost as to how you display your toys so they are never dumped. I have all babies and toddlers and when they are holding on with one hand and pulling the basket out with another it just naturally dumps. Of course any toys that have a billion pieces such as blocks/duplos/etc. I try to just get out when I can sit on the floor with them. But the blocks STILL end up all over the place.

[JennyBear]

So I'm a little lost as to how you display your toys so they are never dumped. I have all babies and toddlers and when they are holding on with one hand and pulling the basket out with another it just naturally dumps. Of course any toys that have a billion pieces such as blocks/duplos/etc. I try to just get out when I can sit on the floor with them. But the blocks STILL end up all over the place.

I am also a little lost as to how to display your toys so they are never dumped. I have children here ranging from 11 months -2.5 years and this dumping drives me nuts! What kinds of toys do you use. Mega blocks are one of the faves around here but the WORST for getting dumped asap and scattered all over the floor during free play time. This drives me nuts! Please teach me!!

[wdmmom]

I don't allow dumping either. On occasion they might get a little froggy and dump toys but they know the consequences right away. They lose anything they dump for the day. I have lots of toys that go into the other toy room...especially if they become problematic. Then they don't get to see them too often.

Most of the kids know how it goes and don't make the mistake twice.

[Cat Herder]

1. So I'm a little lost as to how you display your toys so they are never dumped.

2. I have all babies and toddlers and when they are holding on with one hand and pulling the basket out with another it just naturally dumps.

1. On shelves, out of reach. I take them down (during guided play time) and place them on the play mats/play rug in front of them until they lose interest, then disinfect/dry and put back up.

I have many bins of theme toys for this exact purpose (including tents, tunnels, ball pits, climbers, musical instruments, etc). The kids have much more incentive to creatively play this way. Having everything out all the time and within their reach (as was recommended by my licensor) stifled my group, so I stopped doing it that way. They are happy again.

2. Me too, that is why I put them up.

[nannyde]

So I'm a little lost as to how you display your toys so they are never dumped. I have all babies and toddlers and when they are holding on with one hand and pulling the basket out with another it just naturally dumps. Of course any toys that have a billion pieces such as blocks/duplos/etc. I try to just get out when I can sit on the floor with them. But the blocks STILL end up all over the place.

I have my play room divided.

One side of the room has stuff for one to two year olds
Other side for older two to five year olds.

The side of the room for the little just has a duplo block table, little tykes tool bench, little tykes mountain, fisher price nobby guys collection with trains, cloth books, little tykes hand haulers, school bus etc, and Melissa and Doug castle blocks. The single use toys are in a large little tykes toy box.

We train them NOT to move the bins.... not to pick up the bins... not to play with the containers at all. It's what's INSIDE the bins they can have not the bin itself.

Once they learn not to move the containers and to pull out what they want one by one... AND they learn not to put anything in their mouth (which is around the age of twoish) then bit by bit we allow them over to the big kids side.

That side has huge collections of toys. I have some of these collections housed in two lakeshore cabinets with a total of 24 bins. Those bins are by invite only. If they were to get into the bins without permission they would be put back onto the little kids side.

I don't have ANY dumping. I prefer they get their dump on at home with their parents. Even though we don't have dumping here every single kid is a master dumper. They don't need practice dumping toys and containers. It's hard wired into them.

If I decided today to allow dumping these kids could have my whole room turned upside down in about fifteen minutes. I know in my heart that they are all really really good dumpers even though they have never been able to practice that here.

[countrymom]

I do what nanny does. But I have a tall cupboard with doors and its only for invite, and I have a shelf that is invite only. The kids know that they have to ask, but the stuff in the cupboards are more for older kids. I need to invest in playmobile, my own children love it so much, I some stuff but its put away and the camper is up high. What I get is that kids like to now take the big stuff off the shelf, but atleast they are willing to clean it up.

[Meyou]

I have nothing in buckets at all now other than blocks. I have one basket for baby blankets and bottles etc but it never leaves the shelf. The playroom still gets messy at free play but there is less chaos (since I started about 2 weeks ago) and they are on a mission cleaning up.

I have the dollhouse set up with furniture, guys and all of our misc little animals they like. The animals all line up in a row. I have the dinkies and cars on top of the car garages lined up. I have the guys associated with each set (farm, airport, school etc) standing on top of or in the set. I have baby toys lined up on a couple of shelves. Easy on, easy off for the little ones. We have a shelf for baby, one for large cars and campers and one for books to make things easier to find. Every toy has a home and goes back to that home at the end of play.

That's my general concept and what I'm trying to teach them. The older ones are embracing it so far and the little ones are mimicing better than I expected.

[Meyou]

It's going well. They asked lots of questions cleaning up to figure out where things went and helped each other remember. I'm quite pleased.