Advent Toy Purge
One of our Advent activities is a toy purge. Getting rid of broken toys and sending nice toys we don't play with to a local thrift store.
This year I was again so proud of E! Over the last couple weeks he's asked me a couple times when we're going to choose toys to give to other kids. So when the Advent calendar finally said today's activity was the purge, he looked apprehensive.
As I did last year, I explained to him that "When we have a lot, we share a lot" and that we need room for new toys. We list out the people that we're likely getting gifts from and how generous they are in getting him something and that we need to be generous too.
So we went through almost every toy bin in our play room (except the Playmobil and Thomas trains as he plays with those regularly) and we chose a few things from each bin: puzzles, cars/trucks, stuffed animals, books, costumes, bags/sacks (have a lot).
E was really sweet when we were going through the stuffed animals. I suggested we donate one of T's and E was very resistant to donating it because he didn't know if T would mind and obviously we can't ask him! I eventually talked him into it as I listed all the other stuffies he has, but I loved his thoughtfulness!
We also went through his miscellaneous tote and for everything that he wanted to keep we donated something 1:1. I did pull 3 things aside for T that E no longer needs but that I think T will really enjoy.
We ended up with a fairly large Santa sack-sized bag along with another smaller bag of donations.
If a toy purge isn't something you've done with your kids I highly recommend it! I know some parents just remove toys and the kids never notice (or maybe they do and it causes conflict) but this is such an awesome learning opportunity and if you're worried, the "pay-off" of Christmas makes it a lot easier to talk kids into being generous! You can read about last year's Toy Purge here for more tips.
This year I was again so proud of E! Over the last couple weeks he's asked me a couple times when we're going to choose toys to give to other kids. So when the Advent calendar finally said today's activity was the purge, he looked apprehensive.
As I did last year, I explained to him that "When we have a lot, we share a lot" and that we need room for new toys. We list out the people that we're likely getting gifts from and how generous they are in getting him something and that we need to be generous too.
E was really sweet when we were going through the stuffed animals. I suggested we donate one of T's and E was very resistant to donating it because he didn't know if T would mind and obviously we can't ask him! I eventually talked him into it as I listed all the other stuffies he has, but I loved his thoughtfulness!
We also went through his miscellaneous tote and for everything that he wanted to keep we donated something 1:1. I did pull 3 things aside for T that E no longer needs but that I think T will really enjoy.
We ended up with a fairly large Santa sack-sized bag along with another smaller bag of donations.
If a toy purge isn't something you've done with your kids I highly recommend it! I know some parents just remove toys and the kids never notice (or maybe they do and it causes conflict) but this is such an awesome learning opportunity and if you're worried, the "pay-off" of Christmas makes it a lot easier to talk kids into being generous! You can read about last year's Toy Purge here for more tips.
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