Video Shows A Genius Way To Get Kids To Pick Up Toys

Is your home covered in Legos or other toys that your kids simply won’t pick up? Are you tired of cleaning them up yourself? One clever teacher has come up with a brilliant strategy to motivate children to put away their toys when they’re done playing. And you only need a few backpacks or colored buckets and some elastic — plus some fun music — to pull off this parenting hack.

Watch this video that demonstrates the technique, posted to Instagram by the teacher with the handle gizem.sinifetkinliklerim:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqRxPSRl39V/

As this video depicts, the secret to getting kids to clean up is to turn it into a fun game. To play, each child is assigned a certain colored Lego or toy to pick up. (You could also specify a certain shape or size of toy, too.) The kids then each wear a backpack or a bucket fastened on their back with elastic ties.

The object of the game is to be the first to fill the other children’s buckets with their colored toys until there are none left. Alternatively, you could also strap buckets onto the front side of the kids and have them race to pick up their own colored toys, like in this Instagram video from gizem.sinifetkinliklerim:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqpBmfwFmoO/

Either way, this strategy is more likely to motivate kids to pick up the loose toys on the floor than they might otherwise be. Plus, as Twitter user @ThePEShed pointed out, this “game” also utilizes young children’s motor and thinking skills, so it’s actually beneficial in more ways than one.

Over time, as your children become more efficient at the game, you can also change up the rules and make the activity more challenging by requiring kids to only use one hand or stand on one foot while picking up the toys. The kids will think it’s fun, and you won’t ever have to step on a sharp Lego again. It’s a win-win.