Clean Up

"Can we leave the learning area like this for tomorrow?"

This is the question that one student asked that began an entire classroom discussion around our learning areas this past year. When I asked them why they wanted to leave it, they said that they didn't want to forget what they had been doing. Made sense to me and so I agreed but told the student that they would have to share their idea with everyone else during our end of day sharing circle.

Here's where it got interesting. Many students were excited to hear they could keep their work at a learning area. However, on their own they came to the conclusion that it wouldn't work for all learning areas in the classroom.

The playdough and art studio would always need to be cleaned up.

The drama area, math area and discovery areas didn't necessarily need to be cleaned up.

But what did 'clean up' mean?

I challenged the students to think critically about how they would leave their work at a learning area.

Could all the materials be left out?

No, the children concluded, because then the next person wouldn't know where to start. You have to leave it with materials ready for someone else to join in, or for you to continue the next day. A consensus had been made, and next day we tried it out.

Suddenly, students began to write signs to explain what they wanted to leave at a learning area for the following day. They talked amongst themselves during clean up time, making decisions over what needed to be put away and what could be left out. It began an entirely new level of negotiation that did not require adults.

It was very interesting to watch some students adjust easily to this new idea and other students struggle with it. There were a few students who prided themselves as being 'good cleaners' who always went to different learning areas and cleaned them up. Suddenly, they couldn't do that anymore...they had to listen to others and negotiate where they could help instead of simply coming in and "cleaning up".

Here are some photographs of how the learning areas were left by students under this new idea of cleaning up our classroom.

Stephanie.

The Drama Area

The Light Table

The students had created their own learning invitations.