Picking up Toys

One thing that has worked for my kids and me is to set the timer for XXmin and tell them that they have to pick up until the timer rings. When the timer rings them can be done.
Another thing that has worked in the past is to be specific, you have to pick up these 3 things, now these things, until the area/room is clean. Good Luck!

An amazing trick to clean up is a timer. That way you're not constantly nagging them. Instead it becomes a game. Say something like, "I'm going to set the timer for 3-5 min., let's see if you guys can beat the timer with picking up all the toys." To the children it's fun because it's a game. But I would change it up with a different technique every other day or so...because after awhile that game won't be fun anymore.

Another trick is to assign each a specific area to clean. Then they know what they are responsible for so it's not too overwhelming to clean up everything.

Otherwise I like the suggestions of taking whatever toys that got left out away for awhile.

Good luck,
J.

When I did home daycare (as well as still do this with my kids) I turned clean up into a song. Learned the trick while teaching kindergarden. Simply take any song and put cleaning words to it. Ours here is: Clean up clean up, its time to clean up, put our toys away, put our toys away. I sometimes then put a childs name and a toy together so they know what they are to pick up.
After time, once I started signing our kids simply started picking up like it was a game. Good luck! It is never easy for them to clean up only to make the mess.

I also have an in home day care and have two 2 year olds and a three year old. Last summer I had two 5 year olds also.
I always start by getting all of there attention, tell them that I have a fun activity planned (but don’t tell them what it is) and tell them we will do it as soon as all toys are put away. Then we sing the clean up song until all toys are tucked back in there places.
The older one’s would sometimes continue to play or just refuse to help so first I would praise the ones who were picking up and tell them that they had just earned a sticker for being such good helpers. If that didn’t motivate the older ones I would say "anyone not helping will have to sit on the thinking mat and miss out on the activity". I f they choose to sit on the thinking mat I make sure the little ones leave some toys for that child to pick up.
I then tell the child on the mat that they can join the group as soon as they are ready to clean the toys that remain on the floor. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that no matter what they would have to pick up toys. After a time or two of this they were the first to start picking up when we started to sing the clean up song.

Hope this helps,
T.

I tried this the other day and it was fun....we played I spy until all the toys were put away. You tell them who ever finds it first gets to put it away so it is kind of like a race.

put the best toys or most popular toys in time out for a few days until the kids earn them back by picking up and taking care of the other toys.

I tell the kids in my daycare that lunch is almost ready and they can't sit at the table to eat lunch to eat until everything is cleaned up. They are usually very eager for lunch time. It does take nagging and asking if they ar estill cleaning, etc. though. Kids are so easily distracted!!!

I absolutely hated Barney, but his "clean up clean up everybody everywhere" song worked wonders with my daughter. Also staying in the room and actually helping them clean up helps...Don't pick up all of it, but tell them something like you'll help them pick up if they do it without complaining...My daughter is now 9 and will take 4 hours to clean her bedroom...but I have learned that if I sit in there with her (I now don't even need to do anything) she gets it done in under an hour...I think it's because she isn't out there every 20 seconds complaining it's going to take her 50 hours to clean her room! LOL

If helping them doesn't work, as it didn't for me the first couple of times...the toys left on the floor just went away for a while. Her rule is still whatever is left on the floor goes in a trash bag and you have to earn it back (or if she was really naughty they got donated to kids without toys)...she learned fast when I made her pick those up too...

Good Luck!!!

In my daycare all the kids over age two have star charts. There are about 30 squares for foil star stickers. They get stars for many things. One thing is picking up. (They also get stars for helping each other and saying things like please and thank you.) When their start charts are full they get to select a prize from the prize bucket (consisting of dollar store toys and small 10 cent garage saled items or stickers).
We also have a routine. We pick up at 2 p.m. every day before they have their afternoon snack (If they are extra crabby sometimes we flop the two and have a quick snack first).
If they are having a rough time we turn it into a game. Some game ideas: put everything into piles and race to have the kids get their pile done first. Be detectives, throw everthing into a pile in the center of the room and they have to do detective work to put the toys back in the right spots. Rename the toys "jill, you get to put away all the secret animals" or "winning race cars."
Or offer a reward. Sometimes I let them eat their snack in the toy room on the little table that is just their size. But the toy room has to be spotless first, or we can't use the table.
Sometimes none of this works and one or more kids don't participate, but I have found that threatening never works.
Have fun with it!!!

My mom used two tricks (she uses them for herself too -- after all -- nobody really likes to pick up!). These sometimes work for me too.

Pick up "10" things -- for grown ups it might be 100 things (yes, each Barbie shoe can be counted separately if you need to...).

Let's pick up for two minutes -- and use a timer -- when it "dings" everyone will xyz as long as we all pick up. For grownups we do 10 minutes. It's surprising what can be done in very little time!

What I see happening lots at my daughter's school is that kids are "assigned" a play area (whatever they want, as long as another child isn't already playing with it). At the end of whatever time frame holds their attention (depending on age of kids) they all put away what they are playing with and move on to the next activity. i.e., it's not so hard to put away one toy, one box of toys -- it's much worse to make an enormous mess and THEN to have to pick up.

Have you tried making competative for the older kids? Like saying who can pick them up the fastest?

I know we always sing that clean-up song however it's suppose to go.

I would definately make some sort of consequence for not picking up at age 4 and older they can definately be responsible to help out.

I know when I worked at a home daycare we only had cleanup time twice a day. Otherwise we left the big mess. It went kinda like this....

Free play, left the mess to go eat breakfast, after breakfast they could go back to free play and we usually set up a craft or preschool lesson then they came over and did that again leaving the mess, after craft time they went straight outside snow, sunshine if it wasn't freezing or raining they went outside. Then they slowly trailed inside back to their free play while we got lunch ready. Then we'd call them over for lunch and while we were cleaning up lunch they sometimes had a little bit of free play or they knew it was clean up time and when things were clean they got a video or story and got in their calm down mood for nap time. So they had alot of little spurts of free play here and there and we didn' bother with the mess until after lunch so there was no nagging or hassle. After nap time they woke up and sat on the couch and watched a movie or something while we prepared snack time, if it was good weather they went back outside after snack until the parents arrived. If it was bad weather we got out a few toys or did a activity and maybe a 1/2 hour before close time we cleaned up again if needed and just read books or something that didn't make a mess. I guess by only worrying about clean up 1 or 2 times a day we didn't stress the kids out or ourselves. They had limits with the toys too, they could only stay in a certain area and she had a back room she kept the toys in adn she only pulled out a few bins a day to keep the mess down and to rotate toys so they wouldn't get bored.

I always use the time before meals and snack time as good times to clean up. As soon as the toys are cleaned up then they can have snack. Once you get them into a routine it'll be easy. My kids know now that when I start making dinner they have to go and clean up their rooms so that when they are done eating they can go downstairs to play with Daddy. If the living room is a disaster I have them clean it up so they can watch the Laurie Berkener video and have room to dance.
Good luck,
J.

My daughter and I race. I tell her, "I'll race you...I bet I can pick up more toys than you, and I'll bet that I'm faster than you are." Then, I run into the living room and I start hurrying...and then they always start hurrying too...it's a fun game you can play together.

Sometimes, if that doesn't work, I tell her,..."I'm going to vacuum. So, you better pick up your toys or they'll get sucked up." Sometimes, I even threaten to vacuum up a toy by aiming the vacuum in it's direction. It NEVER fails...she runs like crazy and starts putting her toys away as fast as she can.

Those are my tricks. I hope they work for you as well as they do for me.

Have you tried the CLEAN UP song? Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up , clean up, everybody do there share and on and on till its all clean.