Teaching Tips – How to Encourage Young Students to Be More Tidy

by A Guest Author

Have any of the following scenarios happened to you when you are teaching?

Joe shows up to class without his homework and you remind him that it is due today. He rushes out to get it from his locker but ends up taking 10 minutes. You peer out into the hallway to check on him and he is still searching through the enormous pile of cluttered papers and books, while you are distracted from teaching the class.

You ask your students to wash their hands before snack time and a flurry of activity ensues. Afterwards, they walk away from the sink and it looks like a tornado has whipped through, with soap, water and paper towel everywhere. What a mess!

As you lean down to help Sara with a math problem, you notice a strange smell coming from her desk. You notice it again later after all of the children have gone home for the day. You get down on your knees and look deep into her desk to discover a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich, several months old, now encased in a thick layer of mould. Yuck!

As their teacher, you can encourage your students to be tidier when they are at school. It will teach them self-discipline and how to respect the property of others. Here are some ways that you can encourage cleanliness and tidiness of your students:

  • Reward the students who do well. Children love praise and respond to it better than negative consequences. Give out stickers and prizes to students who have exceptionally clean desks.
  • At the end of the class, leave your students five minutes to get organized and ready to leave. Let them know that during this time they should put all of their pencils back in the case, close up all of their books and put them neatly in their desk, etc. Sometimes the messy desks are a symptom of the bell ringing and students hurriedly shoving everything inside so that they can rush outside sooner.
  • Every few weeks, have a locker cleanout. Bring the garbage can and the recycling bin into the hallway and encourage your students to throw away any rubbish and food which has collected in their lockers. Let them know that you will be inspecting the locker and that all books must be neatly stacked, etc. When the students have finished cleaning their locker and you have approved it, they are allowed to go outside and play. Remind them that if they keep their locker clean for next time, they will get more play time.
  • Make is easier for students to clean up play areas and activity areas by having lots of clearly labelled bins and containers such as “Crayons”, “Building Blocks” etc. Find different ways to make cleaning up into a fun game.

These are just a few of the ways that you can encourage your students to keep the classroom and their desks and lockers neat and tidy.

About the Post

www.prefectlockers.com offers high quality school lockers. If your students are in the habit of cluttering up their lockers and workspaces, here are some tips for teaching them to be tidier.

This post was written by A Guest Author

This post was written by a guest author. If you have high quality, useful information to share with students, send us an email or click Write For Us to learn more. And in case you're wondering - yes, you can promote yourself in this fancy author byline.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

chassidy w. February 3, 2013 at 2:25 pm

Thanks 1,000,000 and please continue the gratifying work.

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