The Great Toy Change Over

This week my two little girls were at my Mom and Dad’s house – which as we all know is an amazing blessing. With the free time I had, I did what I have come to call the “Great Toy Change Over” or “Switch-out” or “Flip-Flop” … well I guess I don’t really have one specific name for it, but you get the idea of what the job entails.

The “Great Toy Change Over/Switch-out/Flip-Flop” consists of me going in to my kids rooms (usually twice a year), pulling everything out from under all the beds, dumping out all the boxes of toys, looking under all those places in which various Barbie apparel, pretend food items, writing utensils, and the like, seem drawn to, and sorting through the mountain.

As I sort every item goes in one of five categories:

• Trash
• Garage sale
• Give to school teachers for treasure box toys (which mainly means I am just returning all the kid’s meal toys my children brought home in the past year from their class treasure boxes) Side note: I always give these items to a teacher other than my child’s because I don’t want them back. I’d much rather have someone else’s 25¢ toys.
• Toys to keep in the room
• Toys to put away for a few months

The last category is the one I want to expound on. I’d read and heard from friends that cycling toys is a great idea. Not until it became a necessity (4 kids in 2 small rooms), did I really put this into practice, but let me tell you: It is a BRILLIANT concept.  You take toys that your kids are not interested in and haven’t played with in quite sometime, then you put them away for a while, and then voila – you are like the toy fairy bringing in new plunder from an enchanted land (a.k.a. – the garage).

So for us, because our volume of people and things continue to increase, I rotate out just about everything in their rooms. So my kids get all “new” books, babies/accessories, blocks, cars, dress-up clothes, etc.  I even rotate out similar things or sets.  For example, I will replace a box filled with horses and horse items, during the “Great Toy blah blah blah,” with a varied assortment of dogs and dog items; all Legos are replaced by Lincoln Logs, …

I also do this, within my house, for baby/toddler toys.  I move toddler toys to a new location/shelf or into the toy box for a time.

So I encourage you to experiment with this concept.  You may want to start small or go big from the get go, but I think you will love how much you and your kids enjoy new items of interest.  This is also a great idea to do after Christmas, when they have so many new toys that you can sneak a few away and they don’t even realize it or you just want to put old toys away for a bit to make room for the new.

So after many hours of hard work, sorting, and trashing I wanted to share some of my favorite moments with you (I figured out how to put pictures on my computer!!!!)

The beginning – It got way messier than this

 

 

Boring picture – but proof that there was actually not one thing under Mason’ bed – a reason for me to celebrate

 

My favorite find (beside discovering Emerson’s back-up blanket). I always can’t believe these survive the vacuum cleaner. Each time I find a teeny weapon, I’m compelled to make tiny shoot noises! I’m so thankful to enjoy a boy and his GI Joes.

The dice is for reference

 

The aftermath of a teeny-tiny war

 

A glorious reward for my labor. Nothing more appealing to a book-lover than an organized book-shelf.

Happy Organizing!