One of the things that I always notice at the start of a school year is the amount of time we need to spend reinforcing to the children that they need to pack away, after they have completed an activity. In the first few weeks we wonder if certain children will ever get their heads around the idea and stop putting all their skills into play to avoid the dreaded task of putting a tray back on the shelf! But, a month passes quickly and suddenly we are really impressed that the children are taking responsibility for their environment and understand what we mean when we say it is tidy up time!
It’s funny though, as one parent mentioned to me a few days ago, often the children learn to pack away and tidy up after themselves at school, but the skill is not transferred to their home environment. The parent quickly added that he did understand that it was because he had never enforced it at home. This is a valid point, if you want your child to pack away after each activity, you do need to make it part of all your routines, from bath time to mealtime and of course after every activity. If you do it every day, constantly, it becomes a habit. It is hard to begin with, there is resistance, they would much rather run off to the next thing, but as it becomes a habit they start to stop questioning you and just get on with it. It takes about 21 days to form a new habit, so remember it takes time and persistence, but I think it is definitely worth it if you can help your child become responsible, tidy and organised.
Songs are a great way to teach your child, at playgroup our leader sung a song that we also used to sing a Gymbaroo so you may have heard it before. I sing the song every time it is time to pack away and it gives Jake another cue that it is time to tidy up.
The words are:
Pack away away away away away,
Pack away away away away away,
Pack away away away, we are finished for the day (or ‘thanks for helping me today’)
Pack away away away away away
And it is sung to the tune of ‘If you’re happy and you know it’
Modelling also seems to have a lot more success than just directing. If I jump in enthusiastically to start packing away, singing the song, Jake is much more likely to join in, than if I just tell him to start tidying up. The same is true in the classroom. At the end of the morning when all the children need to tidy up, there are always ones that will mill around and not help out. If I say let’s all pick up ten pieces of rubbish, counting loudly as I pick up the ten pieces, I generally get a large group of followers. Whereas, I can walk around the classroom endlessly trying to tell the ones who are milling about to come and join in and really not get anywhere! If Jake ever sees me sweeping he demands to have a broom as well and seems to really like sweeping up leaves with a dustpan and brush. It is quite tricky for them to begin to use a dustpan and brush so I guess a big pile of leaves helps children to easily fill the pan and get quick results. The leaves make a lovely rustly sound too, so it is probably just a nice sensorial experience! My inside microfibre mop had a problem with the handle a while ago so I unscrewed the top part and now it is just the right size for Jake to push around. Mostly it isn't really helping to clean much, but he enjoys mimicking what I am doing and gives him practice to develop the skill.
The other thing is making the tidying up process doable for your child. This means keeping the toys to a limit, having low shelves for toys to be put away on and organising your shelves so that everything has a place to go back to. After we came back from our holiday there were lots of new things we had found on our travels as well as Christmas presents that didn't have space on the shelves. It was suddenly a big mess. We cleared out some things that weren't capturing Jake’s attention and it was so much easier to stay organised. Tidying up also needs to be a constant activity, leaving it until the end of a week or a day means that there will be a really large job to tackle so doing smaller, more frequent tidying up makes it a lot less daunting task for your child.
If you haven't got your child's work/ play area organised, check out http://
If you have about a thousand stuffed toys, despite a concerted effort not to end up in this place, I really recommend a toy net that you can hang up in your child's bedroom. We made one and it is great to keep the toys available to him limited, while still having all the beloved toys close. It is easy to vary what stuffed toys he can play with, if he asks for one we can get it down and as we tidy up, just chuck any that he doesn't seem to be interested in back up there so that he isn't wading through toys!
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