educational opportunity or just a big mess?

I have never been very sympathetic with homeschooling moms who buy curriculum at the drop of a hat and then abandon it, leaving their bookshelves full of stuff they don't use (after all, that stuff is really expensive). But I do have the tendency to collect games and puzzles at the thrift store which I justify by them being both educational and fun. Who can argue against purchase of a brand new River Crossing game for the low price of $2?

We have geography games, trivia games, word games, and thinking skills games. We have wooden puzzles for the toddler set, 24 piece puzzles for the preschoolers, and 100-500 piece puzzles for the big kids. Unfortunately we only have one place to put all these boxes and if Maggie or Charlie pull at a puzzle they tend to make the stacks unstable, leading to them toppling all over the floor.

While we do play with some of these games and spend much time putting together puzzles, I wish there was a better way to organize and schedule time to play together as a family. Every so often we have movie night, but maybe we should have a regular weekly night to actually play all these wonderful learning games. Otherwise the collection is just a very colorful wall decoration.