How I Get My Kids to Actually Play With Their Toys (A Toy Rotation for Big Kids)

When my oldest (who is now 5½) was a baby, I had a toy rotation down pat. Then we had our second (who is now 3½), and with him came more toys. Between the two of them, there have been eight birthdays. We’ve celebrated five Christmases and Hanukkahs with kids - and many visits from grandparents. As the kids have grown, so has the toy inventory, and the toy rotation became a distant memory.

Not really distant, though. For a long time I was racking my brain trying to think of how to make a toy rotation work for big kids.

I think having just a few toys out for babies is fantastic. Limiting their choices keeps them from becoming overwhelmed. The same is true for big kids (and adults!), however, having just a few toys out at a time wasn’t practical for my older kids.

Still it drove me crazy that they had a playroom full of toys they would not play with. And I knew this was because there were too many choices - even though I feel like we don’t have a lot of toys, it was still a lot for them to see, and they weren’t processing what was actually there.

Then one day after subbing in my daughter's preschool class, it hit me: CENTERS! That night I took all the toys in the playroom and piled them on the rug. I went through and categorized them into five centers:

• Rug Toys
• Puzzle Center
• Building Center
• House Center
• Craft Center

This has worked so well for us! During center time I choose a center, and they immediately start playing because their choice is limited and not overwhelming. They're only focused on that one center. 

(I’ve actually found that after directing them to one center, they often pull toys to play with from other centers to complement what they are playing.)

Before I share our centers, I want to note two things:

First, you don’t need a playroom to create centers! This can be done wherever you keep toys - shelves in a closet, different areas throughout the house, etc. Make your home work for you!

And second, my kids do have some toys in their rooms. Not a lot, but things they like to play with by themselves. For example, my daughter keeps her Barbies in her room, and my son keeps his Transformers in his room.

Ok, let’s get to it! Here's a little tour of the centers in our playroom...

I already had three cube shelving units along the wall in the playroom, so I designated one for Rug Toys, one as the Puzzle Center, and one as the Building Center. These three centers are where the toy rotation comes into play. I put one item in each cube. Any extras go in one of these bins and are rotated out every so often. (There is no set schedule. Just when we’re feeling it! The Puzzle Center gets rotated out the most frequently.)

House Center is pretty much just the toy kitchen, a doll crib, and a doll stroller. The doctor’s kit is also there because, in my head, this is the Dramatic Play Center. 

The magnet board was already hanging on that wall, so it’s there if they want to play with it at this center, although I rotate the magnet sets in and out of Rug Toys.

Craft Center is simply our craft table. A lot of times we do crafts together, not during their center time. But sometimes my daughter will do something here as a center. (My son isn't quite old enough yet to enjoy crafting independently.)

My two favorite things about this system:

1. I only have to focus on rotating a specific category of toys.

2. They play with their toys!

xoxo

Erin