Why toy rotation, and what is it?

Toy rotation is a relatively old concept that has been applied through different methods (from Montessori to other child development and educational programs) with the main purpose of improving young children’s engagement, imagination, and focus at play time. It also helps deal with children’s tendency to be overwhelmed, overstimulated and quickly getting bored with the toys they have.

In the past few years there has been an increased interest in this method, and several experiments and books have been written by PhDs and specialists to shine more light on this system as a way to tackle young children’s tendency to show symptoms of low engagement during play, attention deficiency, rapid loss of interest or lack of imagination in finding new ways of playing, resulting in passive or abusive behaviour towards toys, more interest in collecting and discarding toys than in experiencing them and an increased addiction to screens.

One experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Toledo in the USA, invited 36 toddlers to play in a room for half an hour, some of these children were presented with 4 toys to play with, while others with 16 toys.

The results of the experiment clearly showed that kids exhibited more creativity when presented with fewer toys, they also showed more focus and spent twice as long playing with each toy, explored different ways of playing with the same toy and extended their play periods. While with 16 toys at hand, the kids spent less time with the toys and had an overall lower quality of play. The other toys present seemed to have created too many distractions and interfered with the kid’s focus.

Fewer toys in one space at one time allow children to focus better on them and think of ways to play.

In conclusion, it was clear that when environment in which the kids play is cluttered with toys or presents too many options, it can be counterproductive. Furthermore, it was recommended to adults at home, nurseries and schools, to pack away most of the toys and only rotate a small number periodically to encourage kids’ creativity and improve their attention span.

Kim John Payne, co-author of the book Simplicity Parenting:Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids says, “As you decrease the quantity of your child’s toys and clutter, you increase their attention and their capacity for deep play.”

In his book, ClutterFree with Kids author Joshua Becker also argued that fewer toys are better for children because sparse playrooms encourage creativity, help develop attention spans, and teach youngsters about taking care of their possessions.

“A child will rarely learn to fully appreciate the toy in front of them when there are countless options still remaining on the shelf behind them,” he said.

“When kids have too many toys, they will naturally take less care of them. They will not learn to value them if there is always a replacement ready at hand.”

The toy rotation method does have different variations since through experience every parent or advisor includes a small twist that they feel brings even more value from the method, or is more customised to their children’s needs and household conditions. But in summary the concept involves choosing toys that bring most value to your kids in terms of entertainment and education, categorise these according to the skills they develop from playing with these toys putting them into toy rotation boxes.

These boxes should fit a small number of toys around 2 to 4 in a box, preferably a mix from different categories, for example a typical box will have a musical instrument, a stackable that builds fine motor skills, a puzzle that promotes thinking and logic, and a ride-on-toy for gross motor skills.

You need to make several of these boxes, and give the child only one box each 2-4 weeks (depending on the number of toys), and you keep shuffling them, while you keep track of what you offered them, and how they interacted with the toys. As much as possible all other boxes or toys should be kept away from sight to allow children to focus on new experiences.

This way you will be bringing the best of their toy playing experience, removing clutter from the environment, have the child learn to take good care of their toys, and every time they are presented with a new box, they’re excitement is regenerated and boredom is reduced.

There are a few challenges to the parent though in this approach:

1. You yourself have to be quite organised and keep record and labels for each of the boxes.

2. You should have a place to keep the rest of the toys out of sight.

3. You should make sure that the toys are age appropriate so that the kid is not overwhelmed or bored with them quickly.

4. You have to keep a schedule of the last time you gave them a new box.

5. You have to keep observing your child’s development so that you know when it is best to introduce new toys to their inventory.

We’ve always believed in the importance of play for children, as well as the importance of a well balanced family life. So we developed our large scale rotation program to help manage the time it takes, the budget, and the space required to keep a good toy rotation program in place. Like everything we do, we like to perfect it, especially if it is for the benefit of our children, so we consulted with several experts, paediatricians, child psychologists and experienced parents, to develop an optimised rotation system powered by technology and easy communication tools. We have built a service around the concept so that every child has access to a wide and varied selection of toys that are specifically customised for their development milestones, and keep the parents comfortable and confident that their children are always covered, making it a lot easier for them to focus on playing with them!