5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning Kids Toys in Centers: Sanitizing

This week there are tons of ladies in this group talking about cleaning. I'm thinking for the good stuff, you may need to hit up their blog. I'm more of a tidy girl than a clean one ;O)

I will tell you real simply how I clean the different kinds of toys we have. Some of this comes from years of work in daycares, preschools, and elementary schools, others come from trial and error.

Plastic Toys

{containing no tiny holes where water can seep in and STAY}

Begin running warm-scalding hot water into your bathtub mixing in about 1 cup of bleach. Sometimes I don't have pure bleach so I use some sort of cleaning spray I have that contains bleach or claims to kill lots of germs. Then fill you tube with all your plastic toys. Cover all your toys with water...unless you put giant stuff in there. Then you might want to let the little stuff soak and then rinse the larger items by dumping your water/bleach mixture over them. Let your toys soak for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour. I've totally been known to forget toys or run out of time and leave them over night. After they've soaked, drain the water/bleach mixture and then rinse the toys with plain water. The hotter the water the better. Lay out on a towel or occasionally giggle them around int the tube making sure there is no standing water and let them air dry. I do this every few months or more often during cold/flu season or if we had tons of kids over for a party.

NOTE: after a doll baptism int the toilet, I did my own little "cleansing" service and dunked those babies in the sink with water and bleach. Word to the wise- Hot Glue Those Tiny Holes Shut. If you're like me and didn't have this thought until your trying to figure out how to help that hard shelled plastic baby pee- wrap her in a towel and pillow case and sacrifice her to the drier for a few minutes. Evaporates all that out of there!

Fabric Toys:

I know most dolls/stuffed animals ask that you not through them in the washer...but I do. Yep, if they don't have mechanical stuff in them they get chunked in the washer with the nightly load. Often I'll hang them on the "line" to dry or lay them on top of the warm drier to dry instead of sentencing them to the heat box.

Not comfortable with this idea. Hit up Pinterest! they have a ridiculous number of different ways to clean toys! Even how to detangle doll hair! For Real!!! Check out my board- I pinned it!

NOTE: Those baptized babies above...fabric ones, even with plastic head- washer! No drier. Ready to rock 1.5 days later. Good as new.

Shelves/Quick De-Germing:

If you have company coming and your afraid your littles snots will get passed to your friends littles {or vise-versa after they leave ;O), Grab a can of descent smelling Lysol. Hose those bad boys down. I am serious! This was a common practice when I worked at a preschool. During story time, my job would be to Kill Germs! Along with door knobs, toilet seats, and sink knobs, I would walk by shelves of toys and just spray. At my own house, I've often dumped tubs of toys on to a rug, sprayed the pile down and moved to the next tub. By the time I'd done all the toys and made my rounds through the house {during cold/flu season}, all the toys were dry and I simply put them back into the appropriate tub.

Ugg, I knew I would run out of time. Stop back in soon. I'll work up an entire post on "Labeling & Helping Your Child Move Around in Centers" including some FREE Printables!!!
This is final day of this series but if you missed any of the days you can find them here:

Monday: 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning TOYS into Centers: Selecting
Tuesday 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning TOYS into Centers: Dramatic Play
Wednesday was 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning TOYS into Centers: Manipulitives
Thursday: 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning TOYS into Centers: Reading