Toy Clean Up challenge

I have wanted to do this for awhile now buuuuuut just now found the motivation to actually do it.

Do you struggle with too many toys in your home? I know most of my parent friends do.  It has taken me a few years to get to this point BUT.... I am finally getting somewhere with it.  SO.... I came up with a challenge.

The challenge is this..... how much time do you want to spend cleaning up toys each day? Do your kids struggle with clean up time? I will say, my three year old is slow as a turtle when it comes to clean up time but my almost 8 year old is finally getting to the point where we are quick and  efficient in the clean up department.  For the three year old, it helps to pick up a few toys, hand them to him, and excitedly ask him to put them in the ______ box. Whichever box the toy belongs to.  We have our toys pretty well organized to make clean up a breeze.  In our play room, we have a train table, ONE mixed toy box, a kitchen, and a market. Then we have several containers that certain toys go in.  We have a box just for cars and trains, a box for bigger baby toys (baby stacking toys, baby books, etc.), two smaller crates for baby toys - teethers, rings, rubber baby blocks,  smaller toys that we rotate, a basket for books, a clear container for wooden food and kitchen toys, a small box for small animals that goes into the large toy box, and then another clear container for the lacing toys.  The kids are well rehearsed as to where each toy goes and that really helps.

So today.... we dumped EVERY toy in the play room out onto the floor and then timed ourselves to see how long it would take to put it all away in their proper places. Does that thought scare you? If so.... maybe think about minimizing the toys. Honestly, I think we still have too many cars, trains, and small animal toys but the kids love them so we will keep on trucking with them.  Anyways.... we dumped ALL toys out on the floor and timed ourselves. 4 minutes. That's it. So even if the kids dumped every single toy out in the toy room.... it would take 4 minutes to put it all away.  I typically try to encourage them to put toys away when they are done and move onto the next activity so rarely would we ever have to clean up in this capacity but it's a good eye opener when it comes to the amount and organization of the toys.  This method worked well because of a few things- I have an almost 8 year old .... I'm assuming it wouldn't be as quick with younger children but they still have a place when it comes to clean up. Second- We have things well organized. Not everything gets thrown into one toy box. Every toy has a place. If it doesn't have a place, we donate it.  What has helped us minimize is to choose a few categories that they play with ALL the time. For us, baby toys, books, small animals, and cars. Those are the most used here. Everything else? Not so much so we just get rid of most of what they don't play with regularly. I also rotate books.  We store some in the basement and every once in awhile, I bring up some other books and trade.  The kids also have their own rooms and that helps too. However, it takes about the same amount of time to clean up my 3 year old's room because he also does not have much in there. My 7 year old has a little more because she is responsible enough to keep it clean.

Wanted to share some toy photos- Below is our play room. A very small room and as I said, has a train table, a market, one larger toy box, several smaller boxes/containers, and a kitchen set mostly.  We dumped EVERY toy out on the floor and timed it to see how long it would take to put everything in the correct spot.

Four minutes later without the help of the 3 year old (and obviously the baby)

This is my 3 year old's room. We make it a point to not have a ton in there if we don't want to spend our days cleaning up.  He has some organized toys in the closet and I will take them down as he asks. Musical instruments, blocks, a basket of books (He has some readily available in a book shelf also) and a puzzle.  

He then has a desk, a wooden tool table, and a small bookcase (really, it's a wooden fire station but we use it for books). Then the drawers in his bed house extra blankets, mega blocks in the middle drawer, and cars in the right drawer.  Eventually, the baby will be sharing this room with him.

Maybe this is some inspiration to you? Maybe not? Maybe you think I'm crazy. That's ok too! Just wanted to share in case anyone wondered how our home is (mostly) tidy with three kiddos.  We also spend most of our time on the main floor so our rooms are cleaned in the morning and then we spend the rest on the main floor. We go up at night and spend a little time in our rooms before bedtime and then in the mornings before breakfast.

pictured below: how I organize the play room toys

Some time later, I'll share the 7 year old's room but again, she is responsible for it about 90% on her own so she has a little more in it. This is no a perfect system but it works for us. We do have a lot of space in this house but this worked in shared kid's rooms and small apartment living as well.

Have a wonderful day!