The Honorable Mention: Successful Clean Up Times with Kids

 “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
~Henry Ford

Kids look up all the time. Why? They’re little doesn't mean "small"...just ask a Hersey's Kiss.
How do I know this?
I, myself…am vertically challenged. Petite…...ahem. But, I am a giant among the wee ones so please don’t break the news to them.
There are so many things I could be doing in the room that would be quicker, more convenient, and more efficiently done if I had done them all by myself….but I have a certain culture I wish to create in my classroom.
Teamwork.
Culture is like a seed. You must be take care in what you plant…because it can take over, like beautiful flowers or like thorny thistles.
We have small wash cloths, squirt bottles, and brooms for clean up times. The children use them often and were shown with care how to use them properly.
Parents were surprises when they first saw a clean up station set up in a preschool class. They initially thought the children weren’t allowed to touch it. When they saw children working with the materials they said.....
“Wow, so how do they know which of the clean up materials to choose? Option A, B, C or D?” They joked.
“As long as they use the materials together with purpose, they can choose all of the above” I laughed.