Spring Cleaning Around Your School – Get Your Students Involved!

Looking for a helping hand for wrapping up spring cleaning in your classroom? I know of a few little helpers that would love to be of service! The chore of spring cleaning can easily become a game for students when we get a little creative with our classroom cleaning. Here are a few ideas that can get your students involved and help you cross some things off your list.

Have students sort out pencils, crayons and markers. They can go through items like these and take out the ones that have seen better days. Try placing one on each table and having the students take out bad crayons, dried out markers or broken pencils. The first table to complete their box and have it repacked neatly wins!

A favorite of mine from my own elementary days was when our teachers would bring out the shaving cream! It’s a blast for the kids and perfect for cleaning off tables. All you do is spray shaving cream on the desks or tables. Students can then free draw, play games like tic tac toe or connect the dots, or even work on spelling or math problems. Try writing a problem on the board and having students solve it in their shaving cream.

Tip! Want to avoid getting shaving cream on their clothes? A can liner makes the perfect cover. Just flip it upside down and cut three holes for their head and arms. Voila! Now they have their own artist’s smock.

Clean up for this activity is a breeze. Once the shaving cream has dissolved just wipe the remainder off with a paper towel. Now you have clean tables and an activity that your students will be talking about all summer long!

Spring Cleaning Around Your School – Get Reorganized!

 

 

It’s time to get reorganized! We encourage you to take this on one spot at a time. Trying to tackle the entire room at once can become overwhelming. Break it down and get excited over the accomplishments for each day. You can even stick papers in a bin and take them home to organize if needed. Now, lets get started on conquering those piles we made in our last post!

First we need to think about where these piles will go. You may find it helpful to invest in a few bins, shelves or organizers. This way you can make sure everything has a place to stay for the entire year. It will make things easy to find when you need them too! You can even try adding small plastic baskets to drawers for better organization.

Need help remembering where things go? Want to make sure everyone else knows where to find things and where to put them away? We suggest that you label everything! You can go the cutesy route and get some decorative labels or even just take some tape and write on it with a sharpie. Either way it is guaranteed to help keep things neat and organized all year long!

You can take this a step further by color coding materials. For example, all red folders for math will go in the red bin and all blue folders for reading will go in the blue bin. It may take a bit of work now, but it will save you a lot of time in the future!

What are your favorite classroom organizing tips and tricks? Let us know in the comments below!

Spring Cleaning Around Your School – Let it Go!

Spring has finally arrived! That means it’s time for a good Spring Cleaning in your classroom! For the month of April we will be sharing with you all of our favorite spring cleaning tips and tricks. We want to help you enjoy your summer as long as you can. Follow these steps and you will be able to have a stress free end of the school year as well as an easy set up for the beginning of the next school year!

This might be a hard concept for some teachers, but our first tip involves getting rid of some things. Here’s the rule; If you haven’t used it all year, then let it go! These items are only cluttering your cabinets. You can get started by separating items into piles. There will be a pile for things to keep, a pile for trash and one for donations. By making a donation pile you can pass on the stuff you aren’t using, that is still in good condition, to a teacher in need. It makes giving things up a little less painful when you are giving it to a good cause!

Keep in mind that the more you let go of, the more room you have for new material! You can check out www.purefunsupply.com for all of our teacher resources, arts and crafts, classroom furniture and more! Be sure to check back in for more Spring Cleaning tips for the classroom.