Getting So Frustrated - Toys in the Way

[mac60]

My family room is our dc room. It is where we are most of the time. I keep going back and forth when it comes to having toys out for the kids to take as they please. I have 1 tall bookcase and 1 small bookcase that have various toys and activities on them. I just brought things back out in the open so that the kids can pick out activities as they choose. I am on the verge of putting it all behind closed doors again. I am just sick and tired of having to ask them over and over and over to clean up. This morning did it......I swear they had every toy that belonged on the shelves scattered about the floor and I asked them several time to clean them up. I stepped on something and came very close to falling, and I decided at that point......THIS IS IT. Things are getting put back up. I am not going to ask 4 children that are almost 3 to age 5 over and over to pick up toys. I am tired of the hassle of it all. On top of that, one of my ornery girls keeps throwing things on the upper shelf trying to "keep it away from someone else", and this little boy jumps up and hangs on the shelf. I really didn't want to have to screw the shelf unit to the wall. I am thinking of doing away with the whole thing.

So, how are your activties set up. Do your dc children have free reign to everything? Being an inhome daycare with everything in my familiy room, I am just sick of the daily struggles with keeping a walking path. Yes, I tell them over and over 1 or 2 things at a time....it does no good.

[Pammie]

Do your dc children have free reign to everything?

Goodness no - or I would have the chaos and mayhem that you describe

All of my daycare toys are sorted into big (Laundry basket sized) bins. Legos, WinniePooh Set, Little People, Cars/Trucks, etc. All of the bins are kept in my storage room/laundry room which is off limits to the kids. I get out one, maybe two bins a day for the kids to play with - if they want a different set of toys out? No problem, but they have to clean-up the ones that are already out before I bring out another bin.

I do keep a basket of books, and a basket of "baby toys" out all the time, everything else is in stash-away bins.

I don't have the luxury of having a room solely dedicated to daycare - or else I might do things differently. But at the end of the day, I need to be able to stash away all the toys and have my house look like my home

[tenderhearts]

Our "family" room and the bedroom attached to it is strictly my daycare area, we dont' sit out there during our family times, however our kids use it all the time outside of daycare. All my toys are free reign, I only keep things up higher that they have to ask to play with then I'll get them down for them. I have those issues too where a couple of my kids have to be asked numerous times to put something away, my rule here is, when you're done with put it away before you get something else out, if they dont' and they pull something else out I remind them they need to put the other thing away, if they don't I take the new toy they are playing with away until it's done, I only have a problem with one child, he literally will dump all the lego's out scatter them around and leave, then when you tell him to put them away he whines and says he can't it's too hard. So now when I see him getting ready to dump something out I'll stop him and tell him, you dump it you pick it up. I understand your frustration. My frustrating thing is them constantly running back and forth with the bigger cars, to help I told them they could only play with them in the bedroom, well that worked for a little while then they started figuring out other ways to be obnoxious with them, pushing them into the walls, running in circles knocking over the kids, running into others, so I put the lid on the big cars box and they haven't been able to play with them for 3 weeks now. Hopefully I'll be able to open the box again and they'll play nicely with them and follow directions with them so maybe in another couple weeks we'll open it up but for now they are done with them.

[tymaboy]

I have something simular to this But it only has 2 rows of buckets & the top area is slots for books. I swap toys out every so often. If the kids start to hang on it then I will not allow them to get the books out cuz there is no reason to feel the need to "hang" if all they can get are the toys. When they dig at all the toys I make them pick them up if they refuse they go in timeout till they pickup the toys. They have learned that I will help pick them up but they have to help too. The last few days I have mentioned what a mess the floor was with all the toys out & my 1 boy will start picking up the toys without being asked, but then I also give lots of hugs & kisses afterwards

[mac60]

Curious to what others do, but Pammie, I will probably be following you. There was a time a few months ago, that I had everything in containers and would get 1 at a time out, then I got this guilt trip that I should have things out in the open, what a mess all the time. I think I will be switching things back to containers.

[Pammie]

Hope it works for you:-)
The only time I have anyone ever question, "don't you have any toys?" is during the occasional new-client interview. I explain to them how my bin-system works, and also my philosophy that children will spend enough of their years in institutional settings, that my daycare-home is a "home" not a daycare-center with all the instructional posters on the walls and shelves and shelves full of toys all within reach, and the longer that I can keep children in a home-like setting, the better!
Good Luck!
Hugs
Pammie

[GretasLittleFriends]

I too use a bin system. My son's room is the storage for the available toys and the rest of the bins are on vacation in the basement. The kids are allowed to bring one bin out to the living room at a time. I have freely available books and baby toys. One exception I'll make is with the dolls. I only have 2 girls in my care so when either one of them are here and the boys are playing with whatever else, if the girl wants to play with a doll, she is allowed to, keeping in mind that she was the one playing with them so it's her responsibility to clean them up.

I have lots of different sized building blocks. I've got mega blocks, duplos, and legos. The little legos only come out if I don't have any toddlers here. The kids love to dump them out, yet would grumble when it was time to clean them up. Now, I give one of them a broom and the other ones dust pans and they sweep the legos up and put them away when they're finished. It seems that sometimes they just dump them out so they can sweep them up. It works great though!!

[laundryduchess@yahoo.com]

what a fantastic idea greta! the brooms for legos,.. I wish I could post a pic of my storage system. I have 10 cubbies, 7 along one wall and 3 on the opposite. above them are shelves that hold stuff. I have big clear totes with blocks, dolls, and things. I have shoe boxes (the clear plastic) with crayons, pencils, playdough, etc.... everything is seperated. My beanbags, puppets, everything. My puzzles are up there, and a bunch of games. I rotate those from a storage area in my bedroom. I also have a big round bucket , the kind with the white rope handles that holds our every day general toys. I rotate those out with the ones in the basement , ( I have 5- 55 gallon garbage cans with lids down there) . I let the kids have the general toys, or two totes at a time. If they dont clean them up we dont eat until they do. . Keeps things pretty cleaned up. If they fight over a toy it goes away for the day, or if one becomes a problem, it is taken to the basement where it can come back in 18 months or so. I also take a yard stick under the couches every friday after nap. Those toys go away where they belong and we only play with big ones that cant fit under the couches the rest of the day.

[Carole's Daycare]

My living room is both the main area for my family and for the daycare- I have experimeted with a few different ways to keep organized. Currently I have a "closet under the stairs" that has a bin system and shelf where I store a lot of toys- color coded by bin, with a picture on it- so there's a pic of a train on the green bin w/ wooden train tracks & trains--- and so on. Those toys I pull out 1 bin at a time- ex. the Little People farm and a bin of accessories. It gets cleaned up before another toy comes out. I have a wall mounted shelving unit that I keep/rotate toys- currently a bin of magnetic put together animals, a Leap caterpillar, a couple of pop ups, shape sorters, etc. On top I keep puzzles and legos that I use at our table during station time- when I rotate small groups of kids through different activities.- (I have a childcraft picnic table w/ changeable tops) I let the kids have free rein during free play time, but they have a set cleanup time before moving on to a different activity. I have a tall rotating book tower- that I keep board books near the bottom & others near the top, as well as a built in bookcase. I have 3 tall bookcases upstairs in personal space that I rotate books from. If a child doesnt participate in clean up- and everything has its place- the soft toys in the red bin, the shape sorters in the blue, hard plastic in green... then they are restricted from certain toys for the next 1/2 hr-45 mn free play period- after a time out, especially if a fit is involved. They may color or some other activity not involving the toys they wouldnt pick up. They do a clean up before lunch- and know I wont put food on the table til clean up is done. After a week or so even the new kids get w/ the program- but I have to remind them. I don't pick up, but I do say- Anna, you were playing w the piggy- put the coins in it and put it back in its spot. I don't have the space for my home to not look like a preschool/daycare, but I insist they do clean up. It never bothered me when my son was younger, but now that he is in school I'm considering changing the upright shelving/bins with neutral/wood toy benches that hide more of the toys during off hours.

[tenderhearts]

Mine are in bins and those sterlite drawers, I have no closet doors on them so they are all oranized in bins in the closet. I keep some toys higher up that they have to ask for such as tinker toys, lincoln logs, those types of things. Then down lower I rotate the stuff on the shelves, it seems that whenever I rotate stuff the kids act like they are new toys even if they are always in reach, strange but it works.

[originalkat]

I was having this problem also and it was driving me crazy!! I do have a dedicated "room" but it is pretty small and is right off the kitchen. To solve to dumping and not cleaning up...I put a lid on each container. The kids now know they are only allowed to take out 2 bins at a time. Clean them up and you can choose another. I also sometimes "close" the dramatic play area by moving a shelf toward the wall when they are making too big of a mess and not cleaning up. Here is a link to the picture of my daycare room and you will see the shelf with the lidded bins.

http://greengatepreschool.webs.com/ourhome.htm

[mac60]

What a nice set up, thanks for sharing.

[My4SunshineGirlsNY]

I have a bookshelf using bins as well...I don't have a ton of younger kids, just my 4 year old daughter, 20 month old nephew and 3 year old boy during the day.

None of them have ever climbed my bookshelf thank goodness..I would strap it to the wall for safty but stop it before it continues...maybe give a time out every time the child does it. No reason to act like animals, .

I have a handful of bins and the kids are pretty good at only getting out a couple at a time. If they are not listening, I would definitely take a majority of them away and bring out one or two bins at a time. And they don't get new bins until the mess is cleaned up.

Good luck! Sometimes all it takes is one wild one to rattle the group.

[Former Teacher]

Oh Mac reading your post reminded of one time our center was written up by the state.

At one time we had a second location that was in the process of being built up. It was a very large living room with room dividers. Hard to describe so please bear with me haha. Well there were 3 "rooms" with these dividers.

Since the center was being set up the center didnt have many children however there were alot of toys. All the children was in this one section. There were maybe about 10 children from maybe 2.5 and up.

Well since there were alot of toys and no one on the other side of the room divider, the children ( who knew better) would throw the toys CONSTANTLY over the divider. Of course they wouldn't clean up. So the caregiver would stop picking up the toys and just leaving them there.

Once state was there and there were still enough toys for the children on that side of the room. Well the kids didn't want those toys..they wanted the other toys. The caregiver said she wasnt going to get them because they kept on throwing them etc..

Get this. We were written up because a. toys weren't accessible to the children and b. because the caregiver wasn't "honoring the children's wishes". We argued with the state saying that there were plenty of toys. No it didnt matter. The children wanted those toys and she needs to respond to the needs of the children. ::

There was some other baloney but we blew it off. I just remembered that when I read your post

[mac60]

I have ages infant thru school age, it is mostly my 18 mo olds to ages 3 that are the culprits. I get tired of telling them over and over "One thing at a time", to "Pick up", and stepping over and tripping on things, etc. Sometimes the 4 yr olds are just as guilty. As far as the child who was throwing the toy on the upper shelf and the child who was hanging on the shelf, they both got to spend some quality time in time out on several occassions, problem is, they keep doing it again.....time outs are worthless punishment in my opinion. While I know I can attach the shelf unit to the wall, I don't want to. These kids will never learn as long as society continues to cater to their bad behavior. I will be doing some major rearranging this weekend. I guess I will be going back to everything in clear tubs and stack them up, and get 1 out each day and rotate things out daily, instead of having everything available at once.

I too have small things in the plastic shoebox containers......only to have the kids walk on them, stand on them, sit on them, and bust them up. Sometimes it is a no win situation......my life would be so different if we could "actually discipline" these children.....yes, I mean a firm swat on the butt.

Former Teacher----Thanks for sharing your story. That is crazy. Manipulating kids. GRR. Honesty, there are many a times I will sit the kids at the little tables for quiet activities, and I will pick out and give them things to do. I have lots of preschool activities---not toys---in a 2 door cabinet, and find my days are much more bearable when the kids are "under" control of me vs "their own control" of things.