Playrooms are probably one of the hardest rooms to organize. Since we live in a small house just a little over 1,000 square feet, we don’t even have one. Therefore, I store my children’s toys in their bedroom.
Before my most recent decluttering and reorganizing session, most of the daytime their room would be filled with their toys all over the place. Each night, before going to bed, my two sons would shove all of the toys back into the closet.
Figure Out Your Organizing Style
My boys have the same organizing style as me: ladybug. Out of sight, out of mind. We like to just shove any extra item into a drawer and call it good. If you’re unfamiliar with the Clutterbug’s Four Organizing Styles, you should look into it. Figuring out which organizing style you have can really help!
Looking at the toys all over the house, or tripping over them, would really bother me. Sometimes, I even got so irritated it would ruin my mood. If you’ve been following along our blog, you know we are all about non-toxic cleaning. All of the extra toys was toxic clutter! It would make our home feel chaotic, instead of peaceful and life-giving.
I got tired of looking at their overfilled and messy closet, so I set out to organize. I learned a thing or two in the process.
- Children actually play better when there are LESS toys. Fewer toys help children(especially young ones) engage in more imaginative play.
- The simpler the system, the better your kids will be able to maintain it. Group similar items together in bins and create labels with visuals(if they cannot read yet).
- A book rack is the BEST way to store children’s books.
- Store away some toys and rotate them in from time to time. This keeps the kids excited about their toys and they actually play with every toy that they have access to.
- If your kids cannot pick up their own toys or organize them the way you’d like them to, troubleshoot and don’t be afraid to try out new methods until something works out for your family.
Declutter Any Broken Toys
This is the step that I started with. After opening the closet, I tossed any broken toys. Everything inside me hates being wasteful, but those toys were probably cheap to begin with since they did not withstand the test of time.
Toys that are missing pieces are not fun to play with anymore either. I made a mental note not to bring in those kind of toys into our house. It just stresses me out trying to make sure no pieces get lost. Since I couldn’t even donate those toys, I just tossed them too. As sad as it was in the moment, I feel so relieved now and it brings me so much joy to look in my boys’ organized closet.
Another category of toys that we decluttered were annoying ones. Any toys that are too loud or repeat the same song over and over again or just creep you out can go. Allow other children to enjoy them!
Donate Any Toys That Your Kids Don’t Reach For
Are there any toys that you never see your children playing with? Maybe they outgrew that toy or it’s designed for older kids. My boys never play with any stuffed animals. Maybe if we have a girl, she would enjoy them. Until then, all of the stuffed animals headed off to Goodwill so other kids who love their stuffies can play with them.
My mother-in-law knitted the most beautiful stuffed animals that my boys would ruin, so I placed most of them in a bag and I will take them out once they can appreciate that handiwork more.
Organize By Category & Label Bins
We have four material bins that we used to organize all of our toys. The four categories were: railroad tracks and trains, magnetic tiles, cars/trucks, and miscellaneous toys. Since our four bins are on the floor, we didn’t even need to label our bins because we can see inside the bins and drop into the correct one.
If your bins are on a shelf, you may want to create labels. For my children, I would just draw what goes inside because they are young. If your children ae older and can read, writing out the category would be great too.
Make a Home For All the Books
My boys love to read so much. It’s something we do daily and they love to choose their favorites for me to read to them before their naps. Our books were getting out of hand because the shelf we had wasn’t big enough for the amount of books we had. We had so many books, I needed to buy something to organize them into. Whether you get a book rack or book shelf, having a place specifically for all the books is so easy for them to put back.
I love that even when my boys dump out all of the toys in their closet, it takes them only 5 minutes to put it all back. Something my mom has been teaching my sons when she comes over is to only play with one bin of toys at a time. They have to place it all back before moving on to another toy bin. This really helped with keeping our home tidy throughout the day and not just before naptime and bedtime.
What are your tips or tricks to keeping the toys in your household organized?
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