Is this your child? Taken from the Scholastic Book “My Messy Room.” Click to see more.

Ok, I’m going in. I’m going to tackle the toy mess. I have to! Can’t you see that countdown clock over there–>
Christmas is just 6 weeks away and my boys are going to get so many more toys! From grandparents, aunts, uncles … We tried to cut back. I should say, *we* have cut back on how much we purchase for Santa to give them, because we now know how much they are going to get from others. But there is still so much.

So here is what I’m doing, in steps.

First, I empty all the toy bins. We have a multi-colored bin unit, one sort of like this. Except mine was only $2 at a church yard sale!

And we have two big tubs. So I basically empty everything on to the floor. And start sorting.

I make sure that all puzzles have their pieces. That books can still be read. I put new batteries in most things, and test them, make sure they still work with batteries. This is no small task, even though I do it at least twice a year, er, three times. I try to do it at Christmas time and their birthdays, about a month before. I look at what is age appropriate, and what they don’t play with anymore–is it because they don’t like it, or forgot about it? I ignore pleas of “but that’s my best one!” if I know they are not going to play with it.

And these are my piles:

• trash
• resell or consign
• donate
• keep
• keep, but in a bin in the basement, to rotate out

I like having a ‘rotate’ bin, because we have stretches from Christmas to a mid-March birthday, and then March to August-another birthday with no holidays in between. And, I’m not the type to buy new toys “just for so” when they already have so much. So I rotate to keep it fresh.

Then, I put everything back. There’s one “special” bin that holds most of our Melissa & Doug stuff, plus all of our good puzzles, all of the learning stuff, play-doh, markers, etc. The green bin can only come out with a grown-up. This helps keep our nicer things intact and all the pieces, plus it’s good for my son’s TSS or if they have a babysitter, they have an ace card to play if they need something to do. The boys love that bin because they don’t get to use it every day. And I don’t have Play-Doh and markers all over my house, or markers left without lids and so on.

If I don’t reappear on Wednesday with some blog posts, send a search party!

What are some of your tips for keeping toys organized?