Prepared Environment,  Sensorial/Art

Rotating Toys: A Method to the Madness

February 5, 2020

If you’re only putting out a handful of toys at a time, your child will inevitably master them and be ready to move on to something new. This is where some sort of organization system comes into play, and there is no right or wrong way to do it – the key is that you find a system that works for your home, the storage space you have and the needs of your family.

I must admit that I have yet to master a perfect system in our home because it is small and storage space is limited. But here are a few basic suggestions for categorizing materials:

  1. Seasonally appropriate items. For instance, I may have a sorting activity available – in the summer they are sorting bugs; in the fall, leaves; in the winter, ornaments; and in the spring, flowers – and I just keep a bag of each season’s materials in the closet.
  2. Open-ended materials. These are beautiful because they last forever since they grow and develop with your child. For instance, magnatiles and duplo blocks are wonderful materials that leave lots of room for imaginative play that advances as the child ages. When you notice that a material isn’t capturing their attention anymore, you store it away for a few months, then put it back out and watch the magic happen. They play with it in new ways – it’s like a brand new toy all over again!

3. Art materials. I have an art cart full (probably overwhelmingly full!) of art supplies organized into cups and containers from the dollar store. The “messier” supplies are on the top shelf so that they’re only accessible to my older, taller, child. I have found that Bates is really only as engaged with them as I am though – so I do my best to explore the various materials with him on a regular basis to keep his curiosity and imagination alive. This way, when he has independent play time, he is confident to pick them up and work with them himself AND knows where and how to properly use them (aka not on the floor, walls, or furniture!).

503 Comments