Choosing a Location for Children's Toys

Janet Schiesl: I am Janet from Basic Organization and this video is about organizing children's toys. Right now we are going to discuss a setting where you are going to locate your children's toys. That's really the first step. So you want to choose areas of your home as toy zones and toy-free zones. A good toy zone would be a family room or a toy room if you have it or your child's bedroom. You might want to choose tot-free zones in your house. Really what this does is set boundaries for your children. A toy-free zone could be the kitchen where safety really should come first. You don't want toys left down on the floor, you don't want to have to trip over something or have a child be hurt in the kitchen. The kitchen is really for cooking. Another toy-free zone could be if you have formal rooms in your house and you want to just keep them free of toys and then also I encourage parents to have a toy-free master bedroom. This really teaches your children that you have your own personal space and they have their own personal space in their bedroom. You might want to have special areas, maybe a quiet area even in the corner of a room that your children can sit and read, you also might want to have a craft area where there is a lot of supplies and cleanup is very important. You need to look for an area that doesn't have carpet or wood floors, something that can be easily cleaned and also a table and chairs so they can sit and do a project and kind of spread out. This is also a place where you really need storage for all the craft products. Lastly, in choosing locations for your toys, if you have a small house, it might be a good idea to box up some of the toys and store them in your basement or your attic and then you can rotate the toys. Really the kids love this because they feel like they have gotten something new when you rotate the toys and you -- it also gives you that extra space you might need if you just store some away. Next, we are going to talk about how to sort toys into zones.