Thursday, January 30, 2014

A system that WORKS!


It’s time to introduce you to two FANTASTIC ideas!  They will change your buying practices and simplify your life ….. GUARANTEED!

The first idea is what I call ‘toy sort.’  Once a month or so I announce, “IT’S TOY SORT TIME!!!!!”  The kids go to their rooms, gather every single one of their toys and we all meet up in the playroom.  They dump out their various baskets and start organizing all of the items into piles/groups (wooden trains together, gnomes in a heap, art supplies altogether, etc).  

Why do this?  Because…………….

  1. It forces children to clean their rooms

  1. It teaches children how to group like items

  1. It encourages children to purge trash

  1. It provides an opportunity for children to work together
     5.  It helps children develop organizational skills

Once the toys are sorted and all trash has been thrown away, it’s ‘toy swap time.’  Okay, so what does THAT mean?  I think of it as ‘going to the toy store’ once a month without spending a DIME!    The children choose toys from the piles and the beauty of it is that the toys seem ‘new’ to them because they haven’t seen them/played with them for a while (maybe months). 


If you have little children or an only child, you can do your own ‘toy sort’/’toy swap.’  Put most of your child’s toys in large plastic bins and hide them from your child.  Only put out a few toys at a time and then once a week or so, switch the ‘old’ toys for the ‘new’ ones.  This works to keep the toys ‘fresh’ and interesting for the child AND helps to maintain a clutter-free environment as too many toys laying around can feel overwhelming to both the child AND the parents! 

I strongly encourage you to give this system a try!  

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