Does Toy Rotation Really Work?

Today was Toys Changeover Day.

 Dividing up the toys and rotating them around has its benefits. First of all, you don't need to have all of the toys out, which means less clutter (yay). Get some big plastic containers. Then take out all the toys and sort them into similar categories (i.e. soft toys, building toys, trains and cars, etc.) After that, put some of the toys from each category into a box, and so on, until you have several boxes of mixed toys. Then you can just have one box out at one time and the others in storage until it's time to rotate.

 The other supposedly great thing about rotating toys is that your kids will get excited about those old toys again. You are going to have happy kids for the day. Or an afternoon. Or just 30 minutes if you have an almost kindy boy like mine. My 3 year old girl would happily play with toys for hours, developing games on her own, mostly something that involves cooking. But our dear Hazzy will fiddle with each toy for a bit and then complain he doesn't know what to play with.

 I find with our son, he is happy to play with the same toys like Magformer or Lego, as long as I keep providing new ways to play with them. For example, showing him building sample pages for Magformer can get him excited even if it's the same old toys.

 So my solution to Hazzy complaining about having nothing to do while being surrounded by toys was to get rid of toys. I kept the toys that my children absolutely love, like kitchen toys and building block type toys, and started giving away other toys. Toys that the kids don't really enjoy, toys that they easily get bored of, toys that are too annoying for me (like those that make loud, unpleasant noise) were given away. Blessing others with my abundance is way better than dealing with the stress that comes from clutter.

 Now that there is less clutter, I can let the children build forts, make hills with cushions and blankets, or build a city with the Duplo, Lego, and Magformer at the same time. Having less toys also makes me think of introducing new ways to play with them like playing Angry Birds with wooden blocks and soft balls.

 At the end of the day, I need to remember that when the kids say, "I don't know what to do, mummy." I don't need to buy them more things, but get to their level and play those silly game with them, like dancing to that out of tune music from the toy keyboard.