Tired of throwing away the cheap plastic toys that come in kid’s meals or birthday party favor bags?
Find new and fun things to do with fast food toys that will keep the kids engaged and having fun.
Does your house seem to pile up with little plastic trinket toys? Whether they are from school holiday parties, fast food toys or birthday parties, they appear and multiply.
My typical protocol was to let the kids play until they lost interest in these little junk toys. You know as well as me, that usually happens in 5 minutes or less.
Then I would throw the toys out because I couldn’t take anymore clutter in our playroom.
I felt joy in knowing that I was not adding to an overabundance of toys. But I also felt a little guilty. Especially if the toys came from a party bag.
Someone spent money on those little trinkets. And here I am throwing them out. So I decided to start finding creative ways to use them beyond the 5 minutes that the kids spend playing with something new.
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Things To Do With Fast Food Toys
Giving a new purpose to an old or cheap toy is the best way to get those toys played with.
The Collection Process
The first thing you need to do is save up these little toys.
I keep a big gallon ziplock bag in a cabinet. As the fast food toys come into my house, I simply collect them once they have been discarded by the kids and place them in my toy bag.
Do the same thing with party favor toys.
Once you have a good amount of toys in the bag, you can pull out just what you need for activities or just release the whole bag to the kids to play with.
Ideas for Things To Do With Favor Toys
We have been sheltering in place for the last month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The other day, I pulled out my plastic toy bag and handed it to the kids outside.
And do you know what happened? They played for quite a while with all these toys that they had lost interest in before. That I would have previously thrown out.
It was like found treasure. And they loved it.
Here are some ideas on things to do with fast food toys instead of discarding them:
- Take them to the Park – If one gets lost, no big deal.
- Play with them in water table or sand box
- Use as Slime or Play Doh toys
- Play in the Bath time – Since these toys aren’t really meant to be water toys, you may have to toss if they start to get gross but you were going to toss them anyway right?
- Keep A bag in the car for trips or unexpected traffic jams
- Use them at restaurants to keep kids busy while you wait on food
- Take them to Grandmas house for when the kids are visiting.
- Use them in Sensory Bins
- Set up in a doll house
- Build a Lego fort to house all the figurines
- Play hide the toys (an Easter Egg hunt of toys)
- Freeze the toys in water and use a dropper of water to free the toys
- Create a nature fort for the figurines (gather sticks, leaves and flowers and let the imagination go from there)
- Paint the toys with washable paint to give them a new look
- Cover the toys in shaving cream and let kids clean them with a cheap toothbrush or rag.
- Set up figurines in a bowling triangle and play a round of mini bowling using a bouncy ball
Check out these ideas from to stop sending in junk to class parties:
How do you like to recycle trinkets into a fun activity that keeps kids busy?
