Question About Toys

[Momof2Boys]

How many toys do you keep out at one time? Which ones in particular?

I am realizing that I have TOO many toys out at once, but I'm not sure how many to put away, and which ones to keep out for now.

We have all sorts of toys...cars, balls, little people sets (house, farm, barn, airport, zoo, garage, fun park), mr. potato head, legos, baby doll and accessories, work bench and tools, play kitchen set, small table and chairs, doctor set, stuffed animals, books, etc.

Any ideas?

[Pammie]

I keep one basket of toys out for the kids to play with during drop-off/pick-up times. In it, are some trucks and cars, baby dolls, a few small stuffed animals, soft-indoor balls - that's about it. I also keep a basket of books out all the time too, as well as a basket of puzzles.

All of my other toys for free play times are in big storage bins that I rotate in and out of use. Every morning after breakfast, I'll pull one out - it gets cleaned up and put back away before pm nap time (by the kiddos), and a new box comes out the next day.

In these rotating boxes, I have sorted by toy:
Duplos
Play Food
Winnie the Pooh play houses and figures
Littlest Pet Shop houses and figures
Blocks
PlayDoh and tools/accessories
Little People City and figures
Little People Zoo and animals
Dora play houses and figures
Legos
Lincoln Logs
Doll House w/furniture and figures
Matchbox garage with cars and trucks
Discovery Toys Marble Raceway


The kids all know my rule that only one box of toys comes out at a time, and if they want a different set out, they have to clean up the current one first. And everyone helps to clean up before pm nap time

I don't have a dedicated daycare space in my home - I use my whole house - and this system helps me to keep my sanity, and some sense of order.

[Abigail]

How many toys do you keep out at one time? Which ones in particular? I would keep out books, balls, and blocks year-round, but still rotate the books and types of blocks if you have many. I would offer maybe three types of blocks at one time, like wooden ones, duplos, and mega blocks for example. Then, use the Lincoln logs as a rotated block toy.

I am realizing that I have TOO many toys out at once, but I'm not sure how many to put away, and which ones to keep out for now.

We have all sorts of toys...cars, balls, little people sets (house, farm, barn, airport, zoo, garage, fun park), mr. potato head, legos, baby doll and accessories, work bench and tools, play kitchen set, small table and chairs, doctor set, stuffed animals, books, etc.
I think organization and toy limits connects with how you display your toys and how much room you have. I want a toy shelf that has year-round toys stacked on the shelf as stated above. I also want this shelf to hold a few buckets of rotational toys.....they can be rotated every week, every two weeks, whatever you choose. If you have a picture of your "eye sore" that would help. Without knowing what it actually looks like, I would recommend you supply only as many balls/cars/baby dolls as you have children who can play with them. This way everyone can have one. I would limit your play food to whatever fits nicely in a designated bucket. The same for stuffed animals. As for ALL the little people sets, decided which ones they like the best. Even having just two out at a time works fine. If you find they don't play with it very much, sell it. Honestly, open-ended/minded play doesn't need a house or zoo area, the kids can create that scene and many many more without it. Most of the toys today are geared for parents liking.
Any ideas?

Pammie, so you really don't have many toys out all day? No toy shelves that are filled with buckets of year-round toys or anything?

[Pammie]

Nope.

Several years ago, I changed my entire philosophy of running my daycare - after much evaluation as to why I was feeling incredibly burned-out at the time. I had been running my daycare for about 18 years at that time (just passed my 25th year anniversary now). My home doesn't have dedicated space exclusively for daycare - I use my whole house for daycare. For those first 18 years, it was like my family was living in a daycare center - shelves with toys in every room, cubbies set up by the front door, centers set up in my family room. So even after the dc kids left for the day, there was no where in my home that I or my family could go and not feel like we were living in my workplace. That was fine until my own kids got to middleschool/highschool ages and that "living in a daycare" began to bother them too.

One of the advantages of doing daycare for as long as I have, is that I still keep in touch with many of those kids that I had in daycare when I first started! One thing that they would always tell me when they came back to visit is that, now that they were older, they truly appreciated how much my daycare felt like a "second home" to them.

So after a period of severe burn-out, and evaluating now that my own kids were in highschool - did I really want to continue daycare or close up shop - I decided that I really did still love daycare (and I still do) I just was stressed feeling like I was living in my job 24/7. So I changed my home back to a "home". No more posters on the walls, shelves and bins of toys in my living room, the cubbies moved into the front room closet, etc. Now, at the end of the day, when the last dc child leaves, my home feels like my home again - in the evenings and on the weekends, anyone coming to visit would never know that I run a daycare here - and I can't tell you how much my stress level has decreased now that I feel like there's some balance between my work life and my personal life.

I explain to my prospective clients during interviews - because I know they come here expecting to find a daycare "center" type feel - my philosophy that children will spend enough years of their lives in institutional settings, that I believe the longer that I can offer them a "home" environment, the better....and the longer that I can do this job without feeling burned out, the better for all of us:-)

I've never had a parent that after hearing my explanation, opted to place their child elsewhere - and I still routinely have an 18-month wait list for spaces.

It works for me.

[Francine]

I sort of do the same things as Pammie but our house was built with a livingroom and a familyroom, the family room opens off of the kitchen and dining room where as the living room is off to the side. I use the livingroom for the daycare room, all toys stay in the daycare room, after hours the high chair ect. all get moved in there. If you didn't go looking for it you would never know that I do daycare either.

Back in 2007 I decided the stress was to much and closed up shop, that lasted until last June. I reopened, changed the way that I do things and am much happier. I thought that I really needed to get out of the house, I needed a "real job" guess what? I hated being away from the house all the time and I hated having a "real job" The grass in not always greener on the other side.

[SilverSabre25]

I have books, cars, doll stuff, and play kitchen stuff out all the time, and most of the other stuff rotates--usually as I see it NOT being played with much. I try to have out several types of "shape" toys--puzzles, shape sorters, stacking toys, etc; one type of blocks--wooden (letter and unit), legos, and bristle blocks; and music toys--drum, piano/xylophone, bells--these don't rotate much as they're very popular. There are other things that rotate, like a wooden barn with plastic animals, a bowling set, etc. There are Little People downstairs (we have a lot and DD loves them, so I don't keep them put away).