Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Toy Cycling


Kids get bored with toys they see all of the time. For our kids (a preschooler and a toddler), that means they pull out all of the Legos, spread them across the floor, and then go get more toys. Very little playing goes on for the amount of mess they make. Luckily, we found a pretty decent solution. And we didn't have to buy them more toys!

My friend April introduced us to the concept of toy cycling. At their house, they go through toys every few months and put some of them in storage. Then, when they pull them out to put different toys in storage, the old toys are new and exciting.

At our house we do our own variation of toy cycling. We decided to put all of the toy sets with small pieces up high in the closet. The kids can play with whatever they want, but only one at a time. If they want a different toy set, they need to put away with the one they are already playing with.

This has done wonders for the mess level in our apartment, but it has also improved the way our kids play. Suddenly, they play with toys longer and more creatively. They like and care about their toys more. This is the solution we were looking for.

1 comment:

Jeremy said...

My favorite part is that they are now willing to put away their toys, since they know they can't play with legos until they put the blocks away.