(Unstaged photo of my living room at time of writing.)
If you are a parent and hoping to streamline the toy situation at home, I have a thought for you today.
Think about categories.
I feel like mainstream minimalist literature wants parents to be afraid of toys. Toys are the enemy to your cleanliness. (Or worse, grandma is the enemy for bringing the toys!) This approach is no fun and only sets us up for angst.
But yes, we can sift and edit the toy collection to keep things fun and easy on the eyes.
In my experience, it’s good to have a variety of toy categories. Different textures and uses have encouraged my kids to keep playing and self-entertaining, even if the number of toys is on the small side.
Everyone will have their own favorite toys, of course. That’s the fun part!
Off the top of my head, here are the main toy categories as well as what specifically we rotate in/out at our house:
Building: wood blocks, Magnatiles, and Duplos
Make Believe: toy food, baby dolls, plastic animals
Soft Things: play silks, stuffed animals, puppets
Art: markers, stickers, paper
Music: kids CD player and set of CDs they can use on their own
Books: an entire post of its own
Rainy Day: stored out-of-sight are Larsen tray puzzles, tangrams, play dough, and a Leap Pad we use less often than the other toys listed above. Keeping them out of sight means they feel more like a happy surprise on a day we need something novel.
This post hasn’t even touched on the toy library aka the dark dungeon of my days. But … all in good time! I’m not joking about this post being part 1 of 100.
Hopefully the above is a fruitful thought exercise for you. What are main categories?
And now for a task.
Breathing Room for toys:
Pay close attention this week to any toys that aren’t getting play time. Things that are always out but never selected. I especially find clumps of tiny plastic accessories that get dumped in piles and left behind without being engaged for days. Remove these toys from the daily play area and tuck them away. Later you can decide if they will be tossed or possibly added to a toy library rotation. This is a great habit to start while you might be anticipating adding some fun new toys as holiday gifts very soon! We all have these things that are taking up space but not making our life any richer. You might be surprised what you notice doesn’t get play time. And the tricky part is to truly follow your child’s lead on this one. Parents can become just as emotional about toys as kids. But our goal is to have toys on hand that spark our kid’s imagination. So their influence is essential.