Project: Simplify: Toys R all over Us
Posted: March 22, 2011 Filed under: Declutter, Kids, Toys 9 CommentsHere we are on week 3 of Simple Mom’s Project: Simplify. This week’s project is Toys and/or kids’ clothes. I am going to focus on toys!!
So I went around the house to take pictures of our toys. It was actually worse than I thought. It’s funny how taking pictures of it all makes me look at it a different way.
The living room is the favorite place to play, even though we keep trying to move all the toys out of there! They always come back! I think it’s because it’s right next to the kitchen, which is where I am most of the time, and it has nice natural light. (I can appreciate that. I am a light lover!) I personally also think that basement playroom is really chilly!
Here’s the living room:
A closer look at these living room toys…
Here’s the basement/family room/playroom:
And here we have their bedroom. My 2 older kids share a room, and there really isn’t a lot of room for many toys there.
Tsh is encouraging us to have the kids help, which I think is great, but a bit more challenging than doing it on my own. Yesterday I told the kids about this week’s project. These are some of the things we talked about:
We have a lot of toys.
We can give toys to other kids who need toys.
Some toys are broken/ripped/stained.
One question we asked:
Do we really love this toy and play with it a lot?
If not, we can give it to someone else who might enjoy playing with it more.
They were also inspired by the closet project and the desk project, so I think that really helped. I was setting a good example for them in this area! Yay!
We started with the stuffed animals. I had them collect all the stuffed animals from around the house and organize them on the couch. At first there were little peeps about how they didn’t think they wanted to get rid of any of them.
I had them each pick out their 3-4 favorites and put them in a toy box. They liked that. And then on their own they each started offering up animals that they were ready to give away. We ended up with a box of 8 to give away(including one that needs to be thrown away)! They aren’t all the ones I would have picked, but that’s OK! I’m really happy with how that went.
But there’s a lot more work to do! I hope to post some fabulous results on Friday or Saturday.
I would love to hear your thoughts/ideas/advice on dealing with this toy clutter!
Ready. Set. Simplify. 
I love reading about the kids involvement! I’d love to see some pictures of them cleaning/organizing. That would be super cute!
I’ll see what I can do! I was wishing I had taken a picture of the stuffed animals on the couch. Oh well!
You always have fun titles!
Once I read about the concept of toy library which you box the kids’ toys, they can only have one box out at a time and they can only get another box after they return the current one. I wanted to try it but I was not consistent to implement it. Don’t know if it could help with your situation: keep the toys downstair, only one box up at the living room at a time?
Honestly, I cannot even start to look at my kids’ toy “collections”. I already start talking to my boys about it and tonight my oldest (almost 8) got all emotional and talked to me about how the toys being unique and we should not get rid of them. I think Toy’s Story had made an impression on him. I’m going have him read Knuffle Bunny Free to help him switch gear!
Thanks for the idea. I have tried a similar thing, but I didn’t enforce it very well. I do think I should try something like that again, though, because I can’t just let the toys take over!
Just FYI, the smiley face should have been a “8” and a close bracket…
“Toys R all over Us” LOL!!
I love the kids’ involvement, too!
Just want to stop by and say hi. You made amazing changes the last two times. Can’t wait to see your new post!
Ack! You made me realize I must not have hit publish when I thought I did!! Thanks!! It’s up now!
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