Like many houses with children, ours suffers from an abundance of toys. This past spring, I think I finally came up with a way to get a handle on organizing our play room.
I purchased several clear drawer storage units (from WalMart). We went through our giant toy box and organized the toys into groups. Some groups had enough for 2 drawers, but most fit into one. Our groups consisted of:
- Books (2 drawers)- just a small selection, the rest are divided in other areas of the house
- Animals/People - this ranges from dinosaurs to loved characters and other plastic people (cowboys, indians, firemen, etc.)
- Pretend Food - for use with the kitchen/Mc Donalds
- Mr. Potato head family - we have the whole family plus a carrot and ear of corn
- Fisher Price Little People Parts - a farm stand, boat, and camping area
- Pop-onz
- Legos
- Cars/Transportation Stuff (2 drawers) - tracks too
- Costumes (2 drawers)
We placed the items that were too large to fit into a drawer on top. We also have a large storage bin that holds all stuffed animals - we only allow one of each type of animal, that way we don't end up with a bin of teddy bears.Organizing the toys has made clean up a breeze! The boys can see what goes into each drawer, so they know where everything goes, and they do a great job of cleaning up.
Having the toys organized also makes it easier to swap out things from the closet when we do toy rotation. I can bag up all of the pretend food and move the McDonalds to the closet, when I bring out the puppet theater and put the puppets in a drawer.
Another benefit to this system, is that I can tell which toys are valued. The costumes and books get used many times a day. The cars and animals/people get played with daily. The pop-onz and legos are used every few days.
And now, it looks like I need to help the Potato family do some packing. The boys haven't played with Mr. Potato head or his offspring, in over a month. So I think they'll need to find another home for a couple of months...even if it is just a closet.
For other great Works For Me Wednesday ideas, pop on over to Rocks in my Dryer.
12 comments:
What a beautifully organised play room! Excellent job - well done.
Organising queen and
Marcia's take charge blog
Great ideas! We use similar drawers in our girls' closet.
I want to play in your playroom!
My WFMW tip is about the same type of containers.
Your playroom looks terrific! I'm getting ready for a big "reorg" at my house.
Marcia,
Thank you! I'll accept compliments from anyone for this project! While the boys like it, they were okay with it being a total disaster, too! Guess that's life with boys!
Karen,
Thank you! I love plastic storage bins! They make organizing so much easier!
reprehriestless,
Come on over! We love play dates!
:)
Sheila,
Thank you! I wish you luck in doing your reorg. It seems we are forever finding something that needs organizing around here... :)
That is a beautiful playroom. I want to do the same with ours.
Great tip!
Zen Master,
Thank you! Good luck! I think it's pretty easy to do with storage bins!
Tanya
Wow, this looks great!
it looks so great! I've been trying to figure out a way to organize my girls room, I'm going to go buy some of these now :)
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