Do a Toy Rotation With Me
October 17, 2023
What is a toy rotation?
A toy rotation is a concept that comes from Montessori. It is when you put out a certain number of toys (about 6-12) and hide the rest away in storage. You then rotate the toys you have out as the child loses interest in what is available for them to play with.
What are the benefits of a toy rotation?
A toy rotation allows for your child to have more focused play with less distraction. When you have dozens of toys, children don’t know what to do. They move about from toy to toy spending a few seconds at each. When you reduce the number of toys they can see, they can actually play and focus for a longer time on each activity.
Having a toy rotation helps decrease boredom with toys. When a child gets board of a toy you just rotate it out until they have forgotten it exists. Then you reintroduce the toy and the child feels like they are playing with something new.
Toy rotations can help in focusing on certain subjects or topics of play.
Toy rotations can allow children to find new ways to play with a toy. There are some toys that every time I reintroduce Aryi is reinspired to play with it in a new way. This encourages creativity.
Having a toy rotation can encourage independence if your child knows they can just go to the shelf and play with what is there and don’t have to ask to get their toys out or have so many they are overwhelmed.
Having a toy rotation can help avoid clutter in your home if that is something you are concerned with.
My take on toy rotations
I typically put out about 12 toys for Aryi to play with. I do not include his balls. Those are a staple and never get swapped out. He simply has never grown tired of them. I also do not swap out the airplane. Aryi loves that toy. It stays out on his little bench. It works cute as decor almost. The last thing I leave out is the basket in the left top space of Aryi’s shelf/bench. That basket holds teethers and passys that Aryi may want while he plays.
I typically trade out toys once a week. I do keep in mind and leave out toys that Aryi is particularly obsessed with. I typically do this on Monday since by the time Aryi is starting to get bored with his toys Friday he spends most of the weekend with his dad outside. Then we can start fresh on Monday.
One thing I like to do is keep a sort of theme for our toy rotations. For example this week I have done math concepts, body parts, and fall. Sometimes I will do colors and shapes or animals and the alphabet. I just think it adds an extra little bit of fun and reminds me to be using these topics in play.
Again, none of this is necessary and this is just what works for us.
The current toys I rotated in and what I left out from last week
Number Flashcards – This toy goes with the number theme this week. This toy comes from a Kiwico panda crate. These flashcards are great. They have a number on one side and the corresponding number of textured shapes on the other side. I just got it from Amazon. Aryi loves to “count” these shapes.
Number Blocks – This toy goes with the number theme this week. These are super cool. They have a number written on them with the corresponding number of holes.
Counting Tree – This toy goes with the number theme this week. This was a super cute find. I was looking on Amazon for some felt letters and numbers to put in Aryi’s books for a textured element. I found a pack that came with this cute felt counting tree. I thought it was a fun way to work on counting.
Circle Stacker – This is one of our Lovevery toys. This stacker is great for children who have mastered larger stackers like the plastic ones you can buy on Amazon. It requires a more focused hand.
Cups – This is also a Lovevery toy related to math concepts. We can count the cups as we stack them. We can talk about bigger and smaller things.
Containers – Another Lovevery toy. Aryi loves these. I would say they are probably in my top 5 toys. I normally set them out when I set out the cups.
Ball Drops – Aryi has mastered all of these Lovevery ball drops. I now put them out together as one toy so he can discover how they are the same but different.
Coin Drop – This is another Kiwico toy. Aryi has mastered it but still enjoys playing with it.
Numbered Dinosaur Stackers – This toy goes with the number theme this week. The boxes are numbered and we can count as we stack. This was a present for Aryi’s first Birthday from my Aunt.
Posting Fox – This toy is amazing for Aryi’s finger strength. The holes are tight and require more strength and skill. This was a toy from my sister for his first Birthday. He is obsessed, so this stayed out from last week.
Baby Doll – We use this doll when talking about body parts. Aryi also loves to feed his Lovevery doll.
Rainbow Spinner – This also stayed out from last week. I always like to leave out at least one noise maker.
Aryi’s table and books, books books
We do not follow the Montessori style of putting our books title out easily grabable for a few reasons. Aryi simply does not need this. Aryi knows when he is ready to read. He will pull out some books and decide what he wants to read. Also, we go through so many books. Aryi will have me read him like 10 books in a row. So when we are done we just stack them back up. This works for us.
We do however rotate our books out based on my current toy rotation theme.
I also have Aryi’s flashcards set out on the table. This seems to me to be the same thing as a book.
I currently have out books with math concepts (including Nepali numbers), body parts books (including Nepali body parts book), and books that I have checked out from the library that mostly include fall themed books.
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