Toys Toys Toys! Need Help

[NiNi.R.]

I'm feeling like I should downsize the amount of toys I have. I feel like my entire house is covered in kids stuff. Each of my children have their own rooms with some of their toys in it and then there is the daycare room (not large at all). By the time I have my two pnps set up and changing table there isn't a whole lot of room.

Right now I have a play kitchen and play grill (this will get moved outside but currently we are working on redoing our backyard) and all the cooking accessories. A tote of baby dolls and accessories 2 doll strollers and a doll swing. Books, puzzles and blocks. Plus a toy box filled with cars, action figures, stuffed animals, etc.

I feel like the room is flooded. We have been focusing more on learning activities and organized play. I would really like to downsize a HUGE amount. They play the most with the babies and the kitchen stuff. The rest seems to just get dragged out just to decorate my floor :: I considered only keeping what fits on my bookshelf. I just don't know what to do. I'm not really a fan of shelf play as I always seem to have babies and they like to dump more than actually play when everything is out on a shelf. I do like having everything separated into totes though so the children can find things easier and they learn a concept of grouping during clean up.

Does anyone else have very few toys? I welcome any ideas. Please and thank you in advance

[daycare]

I have very few toys during my preschool season. What I do is rotate out the toys.

What I consider toys:
hot wheels
thomas trains-plastic
barbies
etc

I do have a lot of:
beads to string,
large letters to string
toys that you have to put together (I don't have a name for them they look like pegs)
tons of puzzles all different levels from easy to hard
blocks
legos
play dough with lots of tools to use with it
duplos
lincoln logs
tinker toys
marble maze/castle
tons of board games
tons of dramatic play
kitchen, food, dishes,
a very huge set of wooden thomas train with table ( this is a huge hit)

I try to rotate my toys out monthly. i will take some away and store them in totes in my garage. Then I place others out.

I don't have anything that I cant wash easily. Like stuffed animals i find are hard to clean and tend to take up more space than are actually played with.

When I rotate things off and on the kids often think we got new toys... AND i spend a lot LESS money!

[Blackcat31]

I have an entire house that is used just for childcare and I will admit that when I first opened, I am sure my house looked like the ground floor of FAO Schwarz!!

....but as time went on and the toys got more expensive and packed more tightly into corners, bins, totes and boxes, I started to take notice of what my kids REALLY played with and how they played the toys I had.

Now, I have like 3 large wooden trucks, 4 dolls (one outfit each), large blocks, small blocks and art supplies galore! I also have some large plastic animals and a bin full of puppets. Oh, and the bin full of musical instruments. And lots and lots of books.

I am sure I have bit more than that but those are the toys that are out and since they are the most played with, they are the ones I am planning on keeping. The rest gotta go. Having a smaller amount of toys helps the kids learn to share and play better together IMHO.

Ditching all the lights, sounds and batteries also fosters creativity and imagination.

[mom2many]

I have my toys in bins and stored away in a closet, so I can take them out as needed and rotate them. For years I had everything out and it became overwhelming...the little ones would simply dump things all out and no one really played with most of it.

Now I bring out a few bins of legos, puzzles or cars and it works much better. I just got a new kitchen, dolls, strollers and bed and that has been what they have all been playing with the most.