Montessori Tips and Hints to Make Life Easier
Today we tackled the kids toys. After months of ignoring the chaos as I unpacked the rest of the house, we finally reached the point where the toy-creep was getting out of control. I thought I’d share our process about how we as a family approach toy organization as well as a little bit about why we do it this way.
The majority of the kids’ toys reside in the sunroom. It’s right off the living room, making it easy to access/keep an eye on, while being out of the way enough that I don’t need to see the toys all the time. It’s also Gram’s favorite room in the house, and the more the kids are near her, the happier she is.
In a Montessori classroom, works are arranged on the shelf in a way that limits visual clutter and makes it easy for a child to make a choice. I try to follow this same idea when I think about how to set up the toys. Our kids are used to this method, and they like it- it make toys easier to clean up because it’s clear where they belong.
We use 2 shelves for our toys. The first is a gorgeous shelf Mark’s grandfather made us at the beginning of our marriage. The second is a toy shelf with bins from Mark’s childhood. The former holds larger toys, and the latter small toys, separated by object type.
The kids helped sort their toys into categories that made sense to them, which helps them to take ownership of the project. I’ve found that Gianna is much more likely to keep a space clean when she feels like it’s really hers. Allowing her to help organize the toys was one way of doing that. G helped make the labels for the toy bins, and I snuck in a little reading and handwriting practice to the process.
The other key piece of our toy organization is that there are never more toys out than there is shelf space. I rotate what toys are out on the shelf every couple of months. This helps keep the toys new and interesting and also keeps them from being overwhelming to choose or to clean up. My kids know that toys are on a rotation, and are able to to request that a toy come out, but they know that it means they have to choose a toy to be put away in exchange. Currently, there are empty bins on the toy shelf. These will get filled as the kids show that they can clean up what’s already out independently.
Like every other area of the house, the toy space will evolve with use and be tweaked and changed as the kids get older. But for now, this system of toy organization works well for us.