Our Bin System for Toys

"Systems" work well for our family. I suppose they work well for most large(ish) families, although I think they'd work well no matter what our family size. This isn't a new system for us, but rather us returning to a familiar method that worked well for us in the past...(I wish I knew why we abandon things that work well...)

Toys have become a bit of an issue lately...More and more often the boys are making a bigger mess than they can clean up without a lot of help, things are getting broken or lost, they've even been fighting a bit over toys (something that is really out of character for them!), so I finally decided it was time to step in and make a change.

I had the boys gather the toys from around the house. This was the fun part...we made a huge pile (or a mountain, lol) of toys on the living room floor.

We then sorted the toys into categories and put them into bins. I then made labels for each bin (my favorite part, of course).

We needed a good place to store all of these bins, so I decided to clear out the upstairs hall closet. (it had bed linens and towels in it, but I thought that maybe there would be a better place to store those anyway, especially since our bathroom is so far from that closet...)



Here is how it works...

When it is time to play the boys may choose ONE bin. They all have to agree on a bin ( a good exercise for learning to compromise and share). Or, they may each choose ONE toy from the big blue bin.

Clean up is simple...we find that there is less fighting when we have it set up this way, and the boys aren't overwhelmed by this huge pile of toys to choose from. It's easier for them to see their choices, and they end up playing with a bigger variety of things.

With Love,