The Toy Collection Agency

I have been getting very frustrated with my kids when it comes time to tidy up and leave the house. I like to tidy the house before I go out so that if I am tired when we come back there is nothing I need to do. My  children love pulling all their toys out and playing with them. They are even reasonably happy to pack up in a desultory way. The thing that really bothers me is how they pack up. There will always be one or two things that are left behind - trains left out of the train box, cars left lying in the middle of the floor, pencils that have rolled under the table and have been left behind. I end up spending my day putting away all the odd toys that have been forgotten

I had a talk to the boys about why this was happening and what we can do to make mornings easier for us all. Kit thought that we should have an op-shop bag that all the toys left out are put in. James thought that he should be able to get the toys back after a few days.

So we have instituted the Toy Collection Agency to combine both ideas. Once the boys have tidied their room and invite me in to check, I will put anything that has been left out in a tub in the laundry. They have a week to do extra jobs so they can earn their toys back. 1 job = 1 toy. If they don't want to earn the toys back then we should give them to the op shop.

To make this easy, we painted a small box gold and placed a magnet on the back.

Then we printed out a list of jobs for the children to do. The criteria for the jobs is that they must be jobs that I wouldn't ordinarily ask them to do.  My boys had a lovely time coming up with jobs they think would be a help to me (and a few of them are jobs they really want to try).

Finally we wrote a reminder on the box for the children so that they remember what it is they need to do to earn their toys back. Now it lives on the fridge where it is easily accessible.

So far we haven't had any toys left out :-)