Sort and Share: Getting Rid of Toys

I have three kids and a small house. My house is maybe 1,100 square feet if I count the dark, creepy space in the basement behind the hot water tank where spiders like to hang out. In other words, I don't have extra storage space for toys. So each spring, we do the sort and share to keep our toy population under control.

Basically, sort and share is dividing all the toys into four piles: 1. keep 2. give to a friend 3. sell 4. donate. Of course, the first year I did this drill with my kids, everything kept getting put in the "keep" pile. But with a little coaching and talking, our other piles grew. Here are the ways we help our kids think about each pile to make getting rid of toys a little easier.

1. Keep Pile: In order to go in this pile, the toy must be played with on a regular basis. If we keep it and no one plays with it for 6 months, I'm allowed to donate it as I see fit. If it's a seasonal toy, we put it in the appropriate box in the garage for that season.

2. Give to a Friend: This pile is the next easiest to get kids to build. It's less threatening than just donating to Goodwill or the Salvation Army because the toys are going to someone they know. We offer toys that we have outgrown to friends with younger children. This puts the emphasis on how big and grown up everyone is getting, rather than giving toys away. Plus, there's always the chance that they will get to see and play with the items again when visiting that friend.

3. Sell: Very few toys fall into this category for us, to be honest. But we do use Craigslist or a yard sale to sell some bigger items. For instance, we sold our old Little Tikes slide and outdoor climbing set. We talk this category up with the kids by pointing out that the money we get will go toward a new toy they are all wanting or a special outing as a family.

4. Donate: This category is a great opportunity to talk to kids about others who are less fortunate. But it still isn't easy for most kids to pack up a toy in a plastic bag and drop it off at a donation center. We helped our kids ease into straight donations by looking for places that were more connected to them. Toys that are in great shape can be donated to the library, a doctor's waiting room, a church nursery, or day care center. Soft cuddly friends can even be dropped off to animal shelters.

If there are toys you're not sure about, create a holding tank. Put them in a box and place that box out of sight. If no one asks or looks for an item in that box for 3- 6 months, you'll feel better about donating them. If someone does indeed go looking for a specific item, you'll be able to pull it out. And if you only successfully get rid of a couple of items, that's okay, too. Each time you do a sort and share, it will get easier for everyone involved. Eventually, your toy population will be under control enough that you won't have to store any boxes in that creepy space with spiders.

Getting Kids to Play at Home

"I don't understand why he plays when we come here, but not with his trains at home."
"We have these toys at home, and she never touches them. Here, she won't leave it alone!"

We hear such statements from parents almost daily. Their little ones come into the store and happily begin playing with the Thomas table or the magnetic ice cream set in full force. This behavior isn't surprising in and of itself; what baffles folks is why the children play at the store and not at home.

I remember discovering this phenomenon with my oldest when she was 2 years old. She delighted in playing at the store or the library. I knew it couldn't be the toy selection, because the toys were almost all the same ones we had at home. So what was it? For us, getting my kids to actually play with all the toys we had bought was designing play spaces in the house that mimicked the set-ups we saw out and about.

1. Designate play stations in your house. Assign each corner a specific type of play and leave those toys out of boxes in those areas, ready to go. We are lucky enough to have a room in the basement to dedicate to play. One corner has the kitchen set and play food. Another corner has the train table. Another corner has blocks and other building toys. These spaces give the children a sense of organization and purpose. Everything is out and ready to go, calling them to come play.

2. Make clean up fast and easy for your kids. At the toy store, they get to play and leave the trains on the table. Do that at home! We have the kids put all the tracks and pieces that have made it to the floor back on the table, but that's it. If kids know that a lengthy clean up is going to follow, playing won't be as free and enticing. Play food goes back in the play fridge; blocks go back in the box.

3. Put bins of other toys that might be incorporated naturally into the other play nearby and within reach. For example, our box of Schleich animals is over by the building blocks. That way, the kids can build homes, etc. for the animals. Likewise, the dolls and their supplies are near the play kitchen area so a tea party is easy to put together.

4. Avoid big, deep storage boxes that are mixed with many different types of toys. I know at first glance, a big box to throw everything it at the end of the day sounds fast. But it doesn't encourage good, quality play time. Kids have to dig through and dump everything out to find the one toy they are looking for. They are likely to get distracted and forget what they went looking for. Instead, get individual bins for each type of toy. We use clear bins with locking lids. The kids can see what's in there, and they can't shut the lid if they just try to jam everything into one bin.

5. Only make the kids clean up one time a day. Our "tidy time" is 4:00 P.M. Yes, it will be shocking how messy the areas are at different times of the day. But why drive yourself a little crazy and interrupt good play by constantly putting every little toy away. And in my experience, when kids get used to the routine, they start to self-monitor the messes they leave behind. My kids have learned that the less they leave out when they're really done, the less time it takes to tidy up at 4:00.

I'll admit that my house on any given afternoon--especially during the winter--is not as tidy as those pictures in magazines or on television. I'm fine with that, though. I'm happy that my kids are really playing and imagining throughout the day.

Taming the Toy Beast: Getting Kids to Clean Up Their Toys (Win a Gift Certificate!)

I just survived the annual summer visit from my in-laws. I'm fortunate; I truly adore them. But it's stressful nonetheless. I stayed up late to scrub the house only to have the kids promptly destroy it within an hour once they started playing. The living room floor quickly became Playmobil land, and the kitchen table was covered in zoomorphs.

Which brings me to this week's topic: cleaning up the toys. It can be a daily battle in our house. I try to allow enough mess-making for the kids to be truly creative in their play, while keeping enough rules in place so the house doesn't become a giant toy pit. But it's a struggle. And as embarrassed as I am to admit this fact publicly, I have threatened to throw toys in the garbage after stepping on a castle figure in bare feet.

Such threats often just get me pleading sobs, rather than the cooperation that I'm really after, though. Also, let's face it. If I throw away their toys or give them away to charity, I'm just going to be out at some point buying replacements. Not a good plan. No, I just want to keep the toys under control so I can vacuum without first spending two hours putting everything away. I want the kids to happily put their toys away without a single request from me. Sigh. A mom can dream, right?

I've tried putting toys in boxes and rotating every few months which boxes are available for play. This failed for us because the kids would always want (or in their words, need) one specific item from a box that wasn't due back out for another month. I never knew what the right answer was in these situations. If I said no, often the play stopped and many tears were shed. If I said yes, then they wanted another box and another box until all boxes were down. Even when the rotation method "worked," it didn't work. As soon as the boxes that had been stored for a bit were put back in the play room, they were suddenly greeted as "new" toys that all had to be dumped at once like on Christmas morning. I really wanted to scream.

We have finally figured out some better storage options that work for us. For instance, I bought plastic see-through containers with snapping lids. The kids can see what goes in each bin. So when I ask them to pick up their toys, they know where they go. The bins also stack neatly inside their closets and on the playroom shelves, so space is conserved.

But that is only part of the solution in taming the toy beast, as any parent knows. We still face the difficulty of getting the kids to put toys in the buckets. I won't bore you with all the bad things I've tried to get my kids to pitch in; I'll just share one trick that has worked really well for us, and beg for others to chime in with techniques that work for them.

Okay, so here is mine. I decided I had to try to make cleaning up fun. So I got the kids these robot grabber hands. Somehow, it's more fun to pick up toys with these than with your bare hands. I lined up the bins for the toys that were left out, I handed each kid a hand, and we raced to see who filled up his or her bin first. It really worked, and it continues to work on the days that chores just seem too daunting to my little ones. I think it helps them to know one specific task at a time (e.g. pick up all the Groovy girls and put them in this bin), instead of just telling them to clean up their toys, as well. We use our grabber hands to pick up dirty laundry, clean sticks out of the yard, put stuffed animals in the top bunk, just about anything we can think of. It's been a great addition to chore time!

I know there are other fun, creative ways to help get kids to clean up around the house. I'd love to hear yours! In fact, I will give the 5 best tips submitted to me between now and next Sunday (Aug. 15, 2009) a $5.00 gift certificate to use at one of our stores! Not a coupon, no minimum purchase required, just a straight $5.00 gift certificate! You could use it to get your very own robot grabber hand if you wanted! Simply post it, and I'll announce next week the winners out of all the comments.

So let's hear your ideas!