Looking at my playroom...

[Josiegirl]

and thinking about all the changes I need to make this weekend to welcome a younger group. My kids will be 12 months, 18 months, 2 2 yo's, a 3 yo and a 4 yo. Now how do I arrange toys/activities to include all those ages safely.... hmmmm
I wish I had a camera and could post pics. Maybe it would help. Obviously I need to go through every single thing and sort for small toys and put those away or up high.
Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. Guess I need to go find some big boxes for storage.

[Thriftylady]

Can you get a play yard or two and put up for the littlest ones so that the smaller toys are not in their reach? That way they could still be on the floor and play there and you wouldn't have to watch them as close. I am not sure if you can combine two play yards to make a bigger one or not, but that is my idea.

[Josiegirl]

I do have a baby gate separating the kitchen from the playroom so I can use that when the 2 older kids want some smaller-toy playtime or don't want the littler ones taking everything from them.
I've been sorting toys all morning and have gathered some long-forgotten cool stuff for some naptime quiet boxes for the older 2 dcks. I'm psyched!
I'm taking a break because I got to the dress-up bucket and cannot believe all the crap that has been thrown in there lately, along with dress-up. I'm bagging most of dress-up and just using my dress-up stand for a few choice items, so it is all visible.
I've got a humungous bucket filled with Little People stuff so sorted through all that, kept a small bucket of age appropriate people, animals for the whole crew, placed them with the block corner beside my FP farm, zoo, that type of thing.
I have a LT roadway/mountain set with bunches of cars, it's going into rotation til these little ones are older. I only kept a few cars in a bucket up on a shelf for block play.
My kitchen set has been all sorted for safe toys. I just have to finish dress-up and my bookshelves and clean out under my couch in the living room. For some reason the dcks have been stashing stuff under there all week. I'm pretty sure when I say it's time for cleaning up, that's where they put it. Lazy lil buggers.
Then it's on to making all the cots I got a week or so ago. Changes in daycare always bring a little excitement. It almost feels new and fresh again.

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

My daughter is nearly 12 months and happily plays amidst 9 other children ages 2-5. You can do it! I keep out mostly toys that interest the bigs that aren't choking hazards along with a few toys specifically for my little.

[midaycare]

My daughter is nearly 12 months and happily plays amidst 9 other children ages 2-5. You can do it! I keep out mostly toys that interest the bigs that aren't choking hazards along with a few toys specifically for my little.

This is how I handle it. It works well.

[Rachel]

Anything I keep out is baby safe (not just baby safe, but won't get ruined or pieces lost). Smaller toys, puzzles, games that can have pieces lost are kept on the table (I use my living / dining room) or in a closet and rotated. There are always 10 drawers of toys (shoebox sized), an Ikea unit (the step one) and 2 shelves worth of toys + board books out for anyone to take.

[Crazy8]

I'd love to see what you come up with - having problems arranging my playroom for a similar age group minus the 4 year old.

One thing I am doing is cutting down on the number of toys in each bin/category. Like before I'd have 40 little people in a bin, but all the little kids know how to do is dump them on the floor so I've cut it down to maybe 20 in a bin. Just to make it easier for me to clean up!