Toy Library

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone done anything like a toy library in your house?

Once, when I was little, my mom got fed up and put all of our toys on shelves in what was my father's library. In my room, I had only a bed and clothes (maybe books, I cannot remember). We were allowed to "check out" one toy at a time. I remember that we all LOVED it. I liked walking in the toy library and running my hand along the shelves and seeing everything lined up and neat. My mom said that both my brother and I are were more well-behaved during that time.

However, it was short-lived because my father wanted his library back for his books.


I am thinking of doing something similar now with my kids, but I want it to be successful and not seem like a punishment. I also don't have the space my parents' did, so toys not in use wouldn't be able to be displayed so neatly.

That sounds like a great idea and it's a way to reduce messes and the kids wouldn't have to worry about having to clean it all up. If they have one toy at a time, they just pick it up and take it back and check out another toy.

That is a cool idea.

What do you with kids who combine toys together and play with multiple toys at once?

My other question is, (this does not apply to us but I am curious) if all the toys are displayed together, do siblings try to check out the other sibling's toy? I could see where that would be tempting. (Unless you set up a paradigm of sharing and the kids are OK with that) I liked my brother's toys better than mine, and I totally would have checked out his Nintendo or Lego set, if either were available. LOL

Great idea! You could give them a card, too. Maybe you could even implement an award system: for every book read (proven to be read), perhaps they could receive a token, good for a privilege?

I did this for awhile -- put everything in clear rubbermaid bins on shelves in the garage (one for blocks, one for playdough, etc). They still had all their stuffed animals and books in their rooms. Each child was allowed to take one bin from the garage, and to trade for a different toy we had to put the toys back in the bin before getting another one out. It worked really well for several months -- the living room generally only had one category of toy out and was a lot quicker to clean up. When we moved to a new house, I put the toy shelves in a badroom closet, and wasn't as good about enforcing it, and it's kind of fallen apart. Also, my 8 yo doesn't really play with toys much anymore -- he's pretty much on the computer, iPad, trampoline, or his bike most of the time.

How about just not buying kids so much stuff?

That's an interesting idea, but I think sometimes toys need to be used together in unison.
What I did when my kids were small and had far too many toys was cycle the toys. So I'd take away the ones that they weren't playing with much and then bring them out a few months later like new toys (my kids don't understand "presents" so I would just sneakily leave them out for them to find), and every time the toy was like new, and they were more interested in it again. Kind of a similar idea but there are more than 1 toy out at a time.

I do this with my son's "many small pieces" toys such as Legos, building blocks, and board games. I keep them on a high shelf, and he's only allowed to have one down at a time. He doesn't have many other toys, as he expresses no interest in them.

I'd want to allow combining toys.

I would ask that it be intentional and would need to find something that works for us. I'm presenting it to the kids as a system that we are developing together (and even my AS kid would be okay with an evolving system, as long as he understands all the rules at any given time and they do not change too quickly). To begin with, we can start with one toy or two toys--if the child is playing with them together (cars and blocks are a frequent combination here, for instance).

If they find that they want 3 or more together, then we can try it out provisionally. But, we'll start with 2 (so it won't feel like they've done something wrong if we are not ready for that yet).

I haven't decided if we will have a "formal" (more or less) time to talk it over to see how it's working or if I want to make sure the kids know that they can make "appeals" if they would like to change something. I think leaving the rules as is and talking about them at meal times would be a good starting place. I don't want the rules so changeable that we don't really have rules. My son and I don't do well with that. These questions are helping me refine the idea from the get go, keep them coming!



Currently, my kids share a room and they each have "special things baskets" where they place items that are theirs alone. It is understood that everything else is shared. What I cannot decide is if these special things baskets will go into the toy library or not. I'm open to opinions here.

On one hand, there is a lot of *crap* in those baskets. The things my kids seem to treasure often seems to be of the happy meal toy variety. I don't know what having those (without ALL of the other toys in their room) around would be like.

On the other hand, I've tried to respect their space as much as possible with these baskets.

Sounds like a great idea!

I didn't quite have this, but I did have floor-to-ceiling shelves in the family room with baskets for different types of toys. That made it possible to have them sort things and keep track of them, and for me to put certain toys on the top shelves and not worry about them dumping out the ones they could reach. (For me it was a safety issue as much as a neatness one; I didn't want the littler ones getting into toys with little pieces.)

I think you should present it as a way of organizing things, and see if they want to be involved in the setting up or arrangement of the baskets. I personally wouldn't go too far on the reward system, but depending on your child and how it goes it could be more or less sophisticated. For example, they could "check out" more than one or two toys to play with for a shorter period of time, or they could have them out for longer periods of time as a reward for returning them on time.

This might work well with an actual library program in the summer as well... Our libraries had reading clubs where they were given stickers for each book they read or had read to them.S Since the library has clear rules about how many books you can have, and for how long, it might reinforce the system.

My opinion would be to be flexible about using the system if they had friends over or in special circumstances, and I would not want to include the special things baskets in the library.

J.

We sort of fell into this because of ABA. They were using his toys as rewards and it was causing all kind of tantrums because he has a really hard time playing with certain items for such a short amount of time. Now we have some items put away in his closet where he can't get to them and we let him free play with them during his down time. We did it because of ABA, but I found he really enjoys his "library toys" much more because they are put away and not available all the time.

Making [insert family name here] Toy Library Cards sounds like a must.

I like your other idea too. Hmmm.. I'll have to think on that for the summer. Good ideas!

Thanks!

Zette,

Did you learn anything from the time you did it that would be helpful advice for us?

Ha! Good plan.

Now tell all of their grandparents.

I always planned on this when they were younger but never really followed through for long.

How old are your kids?