We have returned from winter break and my first grade students seem to have forgotten about our silver rule-- "There is a place for everything and everything belongs in it's place." At the begninning of the school year my students all got their own materials and we were keeping them in little pouches at their desk cubbies. However, since returning from winter break, they have been leaving their things everywhere. This issue is taking up a lot of time from my day afterschool because I've been picking up after them. As I became more frustrated, I realized that I too had lost my way a bit over the break and needed to hold students to the expectations I set and taught them OR come up with a new plan that they could easily adjust to.
I have decided that we are going to toss out the bags, and instead I've created little stations with the most used materials for the center of the tables. When they need the materials we grab them and they share the station at each table. Additionally, at the end of the day I have built in a few minutes of clean up time as a part of dismissal. Students have responded well with the "misplaced mystery" game we play. Before we start cleaning up I choose a piece of trash or material on the floor or out of it's place. Students don't know what the mystery piece is. The students start picking up things and putting them in order and I walk around and encourage them to keep going. The student who finds the mystery misplacement is given one dojo point.
Here's the trick: the mystery piece is always and only something that is about 3 misplaced things away from being a clean room. I also tell students that if they ask me "is this is?" they disqualify that thing and I immediately choose another one if it was that piece-- that way they are discouraged from asking everytime they pick something up.
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