Setting Up My Daughter’s Play Area For Successful Play

One day I looked at over at my daughter’s play area on the main floor and became extremely overwhelmed. I’m only sharing this picture with you because it’s reality. Yes, I’m even embarrassed it got to this point, but it did and now I’m determined to fix it!

I realized that in her short little life we have acquired MANY toys, most of which I think are amazing, but as you can see it’s just too much all at once! This got me thinking that I needed to reorganize this in a way so Mackenzie could have more successful interactions with her toys instead of not being interested in them at all. I could tell that Mackenzie would just crawl away after a couple of minutes of being on her play mat and I don’t blame her. All those toys, out at once, could definitely be overwhelming.

The toy bins we were currently using (the beautiful Pehr pom pom bins you see above) were just not functional. They were too tall so she couldn’t reach any of her toys herself. I realized I needed to get shallow bins so she could access her toys on her own. This entailed a quick trip to home goods where I would be on the hunt for small, soft, shallow baskets!

I found these two bins which would work great, one for books and the other for smaller toys.

During a nap, I got to work editing her current toys and choosing a few to leave out and the rest to leave in the pom pom bins somewhere else (I still haven’t figure out where these will stay). The point is, these will not be near her play mat so she won’t have access to them while she’s playing.

Above is what I came up with after I edited her play area and it feels so much better and I’ve noticed Mackenzie accessing her own toys and playing with them for extended periods of time (I’m talking 5 minutes, no longer!). I plan to switch out what’s currently available to her every week with toys that are away in the big toy bins. Of course if I notice Mackenzie starts to become bored with what’s out I will switch them out sooner. Being a special education preschool teacher I was always putting out toys on the table for my students to play with, letting them know those toys were available to play with at that time. This was so they were making choices, but not from too many options! I think that is KEY. You want them to make choices for themselves, yes even at 10 months old, but it should be from let’s say 10 items instead of 20.

Take a look at your child’s play are and ask yourself these 3 questions. Does my child engage with this toy? Are the bins I put his/her toys in functional for her to access herself? Do I have too many toys out at once?

If you answered ‘no’ to “does my child engage with this toy?” then put that toy away for now. It could be that it’s been out for too long and it’s just not interesting your child right now. Bring it back out at a later time and see if they begin to play with it again!

If you answered ‘no’ to “are the bins I put his/her toys in functional for her to access herself?” then reassess what you are using to store your child’s toys in. If you edit the amount of toys and have a few out, then you might not need many or any bins at all!

If you answered ‘yes’ to “do I have too many toys out at once” then now is the time to go through your child’s play area and put away (for now) some toys so that their play area is not too overwhelming and they can have more meaningful, purposeful play!

If you edit your play area and take pictures make sure to share them with me!