Ah this is awesome. I just changed from open shelves with a rotation, over to all toys in boxes and everything available at all times. My 2 year old loves to combine her toys and she loves it. I don't feel that for us, it makes sense to be the authority of her play anymore. I absolutely love toy rotation at work (childcare) though. And I will always rotate books as we have so many and after a couple of weeks she wants something 'new' to read. The boxes for toys are just the kallax inserts and she can access them herself. It works so much better for us because we don't have space for a playroom so all toys are in our living space and that became overwhelming when trying to relax in the evening.
Thanks! Every family works differently with different personalities and spaces, so I’m a big believer of no one size fits all raising children methods. Sometimes we just need to follow our gut instinct.
You’re welcome! I just wanted all the parents out there to not feel like we’re bad parents as social media sometimes gives us unrealistic expectations.
I just never found much usefulness in that study that suggests that kids played deeper when they were given just 4 toys. What it actually investigates, is not the amount of toys a kid "needs"/"should have" to participate in deep meaningful play but at which number the amount of unfamiliar toys start to distract and overwhelm a child and thus prevent to engage meaningful with each of those toys. That's quite a different thing. OF COURSE, kids are going to loose it with a dozen new/unfamiliar/rarely seen toys. When my kids visit a friend's home, they go nuts for their toys and are completely overwhelmed - even the friends that actually only have a dozen toys available. That's what the study actually simulates - not the familiar toys and play opportunities at home, the treasures and things they're attached to. So the only thing I ever took from this study, is not to give too many gifts at once (e.g. both kids only got a big and a small present for Christmas). I used to limit toys and do a traditional toy rotation and had to give it up around when our older one turned 2. She constantly asked for what she wanted. And even now our 16 month old already knows and asks exactly what she wants to play with. I take things regularly when I see they're not being played with and my kids take what they like from the toy storage when they feel like it (it's accessible to them and if I notice something hasn't left the closet for a while, it either gets donated or when it's a baby toy, it goes in storage for the next kid). But that really mostly happens with educational toys - which is now only a very small fraction we have out. A lot of educational toys are just not that valuable to engage my kids - they are interested in solving it, maybe even do it a second time, then they move on. They may go back to it until they mastered it over several weeks but out of a full day, it doesn't even cover 10% of their play and discovery. In contrast, they can play in their play kitchen, dress up, small world and building toys for hours and hours. So we have stations in our 2 bedroom apartment - one corner has the play kitchen and loose parts, another has all the small world and building toys, another has their table and easle with all the arts stuff. The second bedroom has the gross motor toys in one corner, instruments and everything cuddly in the calm down corner and one small shelf with educational items (e.g. puzzles, stacking toy, etc). Three baskets of books are next to the couch (I do rotate part of those seasonally and in case of any specific interest add and remove books occasionally). All their dress up and pretend play stuff is with their clothes, which just makes the most sense to them, since they like to involve their regular clothes in it. This way even our 16 month old knows EXACTLY where everything is and doesn't just take out what she wants but also puts it away where it belongs (the 3 year old prefers to leave the messes she causes but when I engage them for cleaning up in the evening, even the worst chaos doesn't take more than 20 minutes, usually around 5 minutes). We also use the Trofast system but I prefer the boxes for most items - utilizes the space better (I do have some shelves for the Trofast though for anything that works better that way). Since I stopped regular toy rotation and only occasionally make adjustments with them, they know where everything is so they really don't need to see it displayed at all (until roughly 8 months old, I had an open basket with baby toys for our younger daughter though - but since she's fully mobile, she's only interested in big sister's toys anyway 😂 ). Well, that got a lot longer than I intended to but I just wanted to share a perspective of someone who has very strong willed kids. Someone who got pretty stressed out with rotations once our second was born. So I just wanted to share that there can be other ways without overwhelming kids and that won't cause kids to be less engaged with their toys either. That study is just far too generously interpreted and just does not really reflect the conditions that many use it as a reference for. Like you say and what Montessori also stresses - follow the child and their interests. Either approach won't succeed unless it supports the child.
@Kevin LOVE this. love to see the decluttering/toy rotating train of thought... my son is on the similar wavelength with the same lovevery toys... lost interest in those feeling peg dolls, he actually wanted to sell/donate them, and the peg hammer toy. Not sure if his vocabulary means "rotate" instead of "donate" LOL. where did you get those plastic bins for the magnatiles? Love it with the handle. and I haven't figured out how to organize and store our magnatiles. That box is a good size that fits on a cube shelf!
We’re starting to run into this problem as well with soooo many toys. So far I’ve just been rotating not quite as often but there are stuff that’s not really age appropriate and no other use that we are looking to sell/donate as well. Unless you’ve explained to your son what donate means he might have it confused with rotate. I found them on Amazon. I bought them because of the size and handle. amzn.to/45EyL4b
Ah this is awesome. I just changed from open shelves with a rotation, over to all toys in boxes and everything available at all times. My 2 year old loves to combine her toys and she loves it. I don't feel that for us, it makes sense to be the authority of her play anymore. I absolutely love toy rotation at work (childcare) though. And I will always rotate books as we have so many and after a couple of weeks she wants something 'new' to read. The boxes for toys are just the kallax inserts and she can access them herself. It works so much better for us because we don't have space for a playroom so all toys are in our living space and that became overwhelming when trying to relax in the evening.
Thanks! Every family works differently with different personalities and spaces, so I’m a big believer of no one size fits all raising children methods. Sometimes we just need to follow our gut instinct.
I feel so much better watching this video. Thanks so much for sharing!
You’re welcome! I just wanted all the parents out there to not feel like we’re bad parents as social media sometimes gives us unrealistic expectations.
thank you SO much for this video! what a great reset for the new year :)
You’re welcome. New Year new beginning!
life just get too busy sometimes - its ok!
happy new year and happy belated!
Thanks! It’s like as we get older the less time we have.
I just never found much usefulness in that study that suggests that kids played deeper when they were given just 4 toys. What it actually investigates, is not the amount of toys a kid "needs"/"should have" to participate in deep meaningful play but at which number the amount of unfamiliar toys start to distract and overwhelm a child and thus prevent to engage meaningful with each of those toys. That's quite a different thing.
OF COURSE, kids are going to loose it with a dozen new/unfamiliar/rarely seen toys. When my kids visit a friend's home, they go nuts for their toys and are completely overwhelmed - even the friends that actually only have a dozen toys available. That's what the study actually simulates - not the familiar toys and play opportunities at home, the treasures and things they're attached to. So the only thing I ever took from this study, is not to give too many gifts at once (e.g. both kids only got a big and a small present for Christmas).
I used to limit toys and do a traditional toy rotation and had to give it up around when our older one turned 2. She constantly asked for what she wanted. And even now our 16 month old already knows and asks exactly what she wants to play with. I take things regularly when I see they're not being played with and my kids take what they like from the toy storage when they feel like it (it's accessible to them and if I notice something hasn't left the closet for a while, it either gets donated or when it's a baby toy, it goes in storage for the next kid). But that really mostly happens with educational toys - which is now only a very small fraction we have out. A lot of educational toys are just not that valuable to engage my kids - they are interested in solving it, maybe even do it a second time, then they move on. They may go back to it until they mastered it over several weeks but out of a full day, it doesn't even cover 10% of their play and discovery. In contrast, they can play in their play kitchen, dress up, small world and building toys for hours and hours.
So we have stations in our 2 bedroom apartment - one corner has the play kitchen and loose parts, another has all the small world and building toys, another has their table and easle with all the arts stuff. The second bedroom has the gross motor toys in one corner, instruments and everything cuddly in the calm down corner and one small shelf with educational items (e.g. puzzles, stacking toy, etc). Three baskets of books are next to the couch (I do rotate part of those seasonally and in case of any specific interest add and remove books occasionally). All their dress up and pretend play stuff is with their clothes, which just makes the most sense to them, since they like to involve their regular clothes in it.
This way even our 16 month old knows EXACTLY where everything is and doesn't just take out what she wants but also puts it away where it belongs (the 3 year old prefers to leave the messes she causes but when I engage them for cleaning up in the evening, even the worst chaos doesn't take more than 20 minutes, usually around 5 minutes).
We also use the Trofast system but I prefer the boxes for most items - utilizes the space better (I do have some shelves for the Trofast though for anything that works better that way). Since I stopped regular toy rotation and only occasionally make adjustments with them, they know where everything is so they really don't need to see it displayed at all (until roughly 8 months old, I had an open basket with baby toys for our younger daughter though - but since she's fully mobile, she's only interested in big sister's toys anyway 😂 ).
Well, that got a lot longer than I intended to but I just wanted to share a perspective of someone who has very strong willed kids. Someone who got pretty stressed out with rotations once our second was born. So I just wanted to share that there can be other ways without overwhelming kids and that won't cause kids to be less engaged with their toys either. That study is just far too generously interpreted and just does not really reflect the conditions that many use it as a reference for.
Like you say and what Montessori also stresses - follow the child and their interests. Either approach won't succeed unless it supports the child.
Thanks so much for your well written and thorough comment! No two family is alike so there’s no one size fit all formula for raising children.
I loved hearing the details about what your kids were playing with and interested in 🙂
@Kevin LOVE this. love to see the decluttering/toy rotating train of thought... my son is on the similar wavelength with the same lovevery toys... lost interest in those feeling peg dolls, he actually wanted to sell/donate them, and the peg hammer toy. Not sure if his vocabulary means "rotate" instead of "donate" LOL.
where did you get those plastic bins for the magnatiles? Love it with the handle. and I haven't figured out how to organize and store our magnatiles. That box is a good size that fits on a cube shelf!
We’re starting to run into this problem as well with soooo many toys. So far I’ve just been rotating not quite as often but there are stuff that’s not really age appropriate and no other use that we are looking to sell/donate as well. Unless you’ve explained to your son what donate means he might have it confused with rotate.
I found them on Amazon. I bought them because of the size and handle. amzn.to/45EyL4b
Now I don't have too bad when my kid's playroom is a bit messy 😅
I’m sure this happens to best of us!
Thanks for sharing! Where is the toy shelf from?
The toy shelves are from IKEA, the Trofast series.
Do you have amazon link for the cube toys?
Here’s the link to the Magna Qubix amzn.to/3iGbLOt
@Kevin Lu thank you so much! It's his birthday coming up. Do you have any other toys/book that you recommend?
Do you have a link for the mini magnet tiles?
I just checked and I remembered the brand wrong. The mini ones are actually Picasso Tiles: amzn.to/3CPjoc6
Not the point of this video lol, but where are the emotion peg dolls from?
Lovevery