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Kindergarten Prep: Clean-Up Time

Taking Care of the Classroom

Kindergarten Prep: Clean-Up Time

In the kindergarten classroom, your child will be expected to do her share of taking care of the classroom environment. This can include anything from picking up blocks after play to throwing away trash after snack to putting books back on a shelf and the list goes on.

• Know how to organize and put things away in her room and around the home environment
• Notice whether a task is fully completed or if there is still some work left to do
• Bring to the kindergarten classroom a broad array of skills and abilities to confidently complete the tasks involved in taking care of the classroom environment

How You Can Help

There are many skills that help a young child successfully participate in clean-up such as sorting, folding, wiping, and so on. Let's take a look at a few of those skills and how you can foster each of them at home. By recognizing the skills that help your child to take care of her environment, you will start to understand how each of these skills, when put together, create a competent and capable clean-up time helper.

• Sorting and classifying: One of the most basic skills in clean-up time is the ability to sort objects and put things that are alike together. For example, if you want your child to put her clothes in a drawer, chances are you want the socks to go in a sock drawer and the pants to go in the pants drawer.Sorting and classifying can teach a child how to organize her world and will be something your child will experience often in the kindergarten classroom. She'll be sorting blocks and toys and crayons and other items as a daily part of helping to put things away. As you seek to help your child get organized, take time to break down the process into specific parts and look for interesting materials and opportunities to sort and classify (like silverware in a drawer) at home.
• Folding: Whether your child is trying to fold a towel or a napkin, folding is a skill that needs time and attention. In the kindergarten classroom your child may be asked to fold dress-up clothes and stack them in a basket or fold a piece of paper to make a snowflake. The practice of folding different kinds of materials varies for each kind of material. Give your child the task of folding a set of towels or folding a sheet of paper to tuck into an envelope. Folding is another way your child can take care of and organize her world.
• Stacking: In the kindergarten classroom your child will most likely be helping to stack blocks in the block center or neatly stacking a set of books on a shelf. You can give her fun and meaningful opportunities for stacking things at home. Try seeing how high she can stack a set of towels before they fall over. Talk to her about why the towels fell over. Does she need to limit the height of the stack? Also talk to her about the different directions that objects can be stacked. A set of books can be stacked on top of one another or beside one another. Those same books can be stacked from smallest to largest. Look for opportunities to help her explore and practice the skill of stacking.
• Clearing and wiping: At some point in kindergarten your child will probably be responsible for clearing her place at the table after snack or lunchtime. She'll have to learn how to carry trash to the trash can in one trip and make sure everything else has been neatly removed from the table. At home, you can help your child by encouraging her to set and clear the table before and after a meal. But not all wiping has to be related to housework. Teach her how to wipe a chalkboard clean or give her a squeegee to wipe off the windows of a car (in the summertime, kids will love the opportunity to get wet!). You can find lots of things for your child to wipe, and keeping the process fun will help her develop this skill.
• Pouring: Another skill that your child may need to practice is pouring a drink into her own cup. In some classrooms, children are expected to pour their own juice or water. You can give your child plenty of practice by adding a plastic cup and pitcher to the bathtub or placing a set by the bathroom sink. Encourage your child to fill the cup with water and notice when the cup starts to get too full. Encourage your child to think ahead about how full to get the cup before she starts to fill it up and how to hold the pitcher over the cup rather than resting it on the cup. Remember to use a variety of pitchers because each one pours in a different way. When you feel your child is ready, invite her to pour her own drink at lunch or dinner time. In the end, this process may make for a few spills, but as your child masters the skill of pouring, it will build independence and prevent future messes at the classroom table.
• Everything has its place: In the kindergarten classroom, everything belongs somewhere. Books go on the bookshelf, coats go on hooks, papers go in baskets... and the list goes on. Keeping a classroom organized is a must in order to keep children focused and successful in their learning environment. In a child's bedroom, it is easy for him to leave laundry on the floor or crayons on the bedside table, but when these behaviors are left unattended they also develop into bad habits. Get your child into the habit of looking around his room at the end of a day and noticing what items need to be put back in their places. Putting things away doesn't have to be a burdensome chore. It can also be a game. Purposely mix things up a bit-leave a chair upside down or wear a sock on your hand. When your child notices, just say, "Oh, so this isn't where this belongs?" Then invite him to help you make the correction.
• Completing a task: When your child has been given a task, he should learn to notice if the task is complete or if there are parts of it left unfinished. In the kindergarten classroom, your child will be expected to complete a task and not leave the rest for his fellow classmates or teacher. At home, you can help your child notice if a task has been completed. Start with simple jobs such as putting away a basket of toys. Are all the toys in the basket or are there still some under the bed or behind the basket? Teach your child to take a look around to make sure that the work is fully completed before moving on to something else.

Assign Specific Tasks

What you don't want to do is create anxiety over cleaning up. Instead, break the routine into smaller tasks that your child can successfully complete. Even in the kindergarten classroom, the teacher will not send your child into a messy classroom and simply say, "I need you to clean all of this up before I get back." Instead, the teacher will expect your child to complete specific tasks that help the classroom as a whole.

Reflect, Revise, Revisit
Remember that clean-up time is a set of skills, not just one skill. Those skills can be taught both through playful activities and through working on household chores. The goal is to help your child be successful in completing tasks and to take pride in his efforts. As your child is completing a task, reflect on what seems to be missing from his collection of skills and think of games or fun ways to give that skill a little more attention. Don't always associate every process of learning a skill with clean-up time, but do use clean-up time as a way to assess the skills your child may still need more experience to master.