How to use a toy rotation system to tackle toy clutter

Last Updated on March 13, 2025

Toys can be one of the biggest sources of clutter in our homes, they seem to take over just about every room. Luckily, there’s a simple way to get on top of toy clutter once and for all, and that’s by having a toy rotation system in place.

Here’s everything you need to know about toy rotation, including the benefits, how to rotate toys, toy rotation categories, how often you should do one, and some toy rotation storage ideas, so you can finally tackle toy clutter in your home.

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What is toy rotation?

Toy rotation is when you regularly change the toys that your children can play with.

This means that instead of having all of your children’s toys available for them to play with, you divide their toys into sets, and periodically swap the sets around, so only a selected number of toys are available for them to play with at any one time.

Toy rotation benefits

There are many benefits to rotating toys, some of them are:

• Helps to declutter your home, because you have less toys available to create clutter
• Encourages creativity, with fewer toys to play with, your children will come up with new ways to play with their toys, and they’ll play with them for longer
• New toy rotations feel like new toys, reducing the likelihood of your children becoming bored of their toys, and decreasing the amount you spend on new toys
• Helps kids to play independently

How to rotate toys

Here are some steps that you can follow if you’d like to start a toy rotation system in your home.

1 Put all of your kid’s toys in one place

The first step when implementing a toy rotation system is to place all of your kid’s toys in one location, which allows you to see what types of toys they have, which helps with the next step.

2 Declutter your kid’s toys

Once all of the toys are in one location, pick up each toy and add it to one of the below piles:

• Keep – toys your kid’s still play with

• Throw / Recycle – toys that are broken beyond repair, or toys with missing pieces

• Donate / Sell – toys your children no longer play with, or have duplicates of, but still work

Immediately throw out or recycle toys in your throw / recycle pile, then place your donate / sell toys in a large bag and put them in your car to take to your local donation store, or store them away ready to sell.

All toys that aren’t in your keep pile, need to be removed from your home as soon as possible, otherwise the temptation to add them back to your keep pile will be strong, which won’t help you to keep on top of toy clutter in your home.

3 Create toy rotation categories

Putting the toys in your keep pile into a toy rotation category, is an essential step in your toy rotation system.

Here are some toy rotation categories that you could use for your toy rotation system:

Building and construction toys

• Blocks
• Gear sets
• Lego
• Magnetic tiles
• Marble runs

Pretend play toys

• Action figures
• Doll houses
• Dress up costumes
• Plush toys
• Vehicles, and toys that move

Educational toys

• Maths cubes
• Shape matching boards
• Shape sorters
• Spelling games
• STEM kits

Arts and craft supplies

• Colouring books
• Crafting activities
• Crayons and markers
• Paint and Play-Doh
• Stickers and sticker books

Books, puzzles, games

• Board books
• Board games
• Card games
• Picture books
• Puzzles

Outdoor toys

• Balls
• Beach accessories
• Play tents
• Skipping ropes
• Water play accessories

Musical toys

• Microphones
• Mini keyboards
• Shaker toys
• Tambourines
• Toys that play tunes

4 Create toy rotation sets

Once you’ve placed each toy into a toy rotation category, it’s time to create your toy rotation sets.

To do this, take 2-4 toys from each toy rotation category and put them in a pile, continue to do this until you have multiple piles.

Each pile is one toy rotation set.

When choosing toys for a toy rotation set, think about the combination of toys that your kids like to play with.

For example, if your kids like drawing pictures of their favourite characters, then one of your toy rotation sets could have crayons and markers, action figures, plush toys, and stickers.

Once done, choose 1-2 of the toy rotation sets, and place them in a toybox, these are the toys that your kids can play with.

Store the remaining toy rotation sets away somewhere your kids can’t find them.

How often to rotate toys?

When deciding how long you want to go between toy rotations, you may decide to do it weekly, monthly, bi monthly, when your kids are sick of playing with a toy rotation set, or at any other timeline that suits you.

If you have young children with low attention spans, you may decide to rotate your toys regularly, the same applies if you have a large number of toys you want to rotate through.

There are no rules around how often to rotate toys. You can be as flexible as you need to be, and can change how often you rotate toys to suit you and your children’s needs.

You may even have toys that you want to be permanently out to play with, like a large play kitchen, or toys your children play with every day, and that’s totally fine.

Toy rotation storage

You need to store your toy rotation sets into boxes to make it easier for your kids to find them, and to store toy rotation sets in storage.

Using clear toy storage containers to do this is a great idea, because they enable your kids to easily see what’s inside them, so they can quickly locate what they need, without pulling toys out of other containers to find what they’re looking for.

A clear toy storage container idea for Lego are stackable Lego storage containers, for soft toys I love using stuffed animal storage cubes, and to store toy rotation sets, I use large clear storage containers which I store under my stairs.

If you want a more decorative toybox, then toy storage organisers with multiple boxes are perfect for storing larger numbers of toys in one room, or a toy storage box with a lid can be used if you’d like to hide your toys away.

Toy rotation – a recap

Having a toy rotation system in place in your home, not only helps you to keep on top of toy clutter, but it helps you to keep your home tidy with kids, and is a great way to encourage your children to play more creatively, independently, and for longer periods of time.

Rotating toys involves putting your children’s toys into categories, and choosing 2-4 toys from each category to place in a toy rotation set.

Your children will play with the toys in a toy rotation set until you decide to swap them for another toy rotation set you’ve stored away.

I hope this post has helped you decide if rotating toys is something that will help you to simplify your home, and better manage clutter.

How do you keep on top of toy clutter in your home?

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