Classroom Mistakes Part 2

Challenged With Your Classroom Being Organized?

For today’s proven management solution, I want to tell the childcare business owners about classroom mistakes that you’re making when using the wrong bins.

First of all, many of you have challenges with your classrooms being run in an organized manner, because your shelving setup is incorrect.

Problem #1 Your bins are incorrect and they’re not being utilized the correct way.

Investing in the proper shelving will support classroom management expectations. Proper shelving really does impact the way your team members are able to manage material and the way children are able to utilize the material.

So if you haven’t changed your shelving in a while now’s a good time to do so.

Problem #2 Improper Placement Of Trays On Your Shelves

Book Bins

I see a lot of childcare business owners using book bins inappropriately. For instance, I see owners using these bins for items like paper, pins, and materials.

However, these bins are only good for books. So when you have a book section make sure that you use these types of bins if necessary.

Activity Trays

Another item that I’ve found useful in classroom management is the trays. Pictured below are top-shelf trays and they’re also used for activities.

So when I say top shelf, I mean that we use the concept in our one-year-old room all the way to our preschool room where we identify how the material is placed on the shelves therefore we use the concept of

Easy

Intermediate

and

Difficult

So easy are the on the top shelf which are on the trays. These trays are used for instances where the students are able to take what’s on the shelf along with the tray to their quiet spot, whether it’s back to their tables or on the floor.

And the reason why these are important is because this is the way that you are able to maintain the material that you’re giving the children access to.

Open Grill Bins

Another item that I got from the Dollar Tree were these open grill bins. I like these because I started out with these in my childcare program and I started out with a variety of different colors. And they were large, just like the ones that I would have gotten from Lake Shore, but it wasn’t in my budget so I got these instead.

And then as my systems began to evolve, I shifted from these to more of my Lakeshore model.

However, these are important because as you can tell the height you can still see the items that are inside of the bin. And also you can see that it has the little handles so that the children can pick up and again, take these activities to their classroom. So essentially when you have these bins on your shelf as inside of your centers, they are meant for the students to take the complete bin to their quiet spot, not just pick the items up from the bin and go to the quiet spot but to take the full bin. And that’s the proper use of these.

Cubbie Bins

The next bins are typically what you’ll see in spaces like the infant rooms or in your area where you are storing diapers and wipes. So we’ll call these like your cubby lockers. I see these bins like cubby bins. But I also see owners using these on shelving and that is incorrect. Because you can’t see the items that’s inside of it and the size of it is going to make it really hard for you to have an organized sequence of items on the cubbies. And because of the length of it, it’s going to protrude off from your cubbies. So this is why I wanted to educate my audience that these are typically used just for your storage of things like diapers, changing clothes, etc.

Cup Caddies.

These cup caddies are really cute, they’re durable and made out of some good material, but I see childcare business owners that use these all over the room and they’re not really used the right way. But this is for your table management for when you have items that you want and for the children to be able to keep assorted and also to have in the middle of the table. So you will also utilize this not as a permanent shelf storage bin, but you just use it on the table for when you have table time activity.

So if you’re wondering why am I telling you all these things…

Well, the reason why I want to go over this with you is because if you don’t know the purpose of these, and that’s why your systems cannot be implemented in your program. If you understand how these items are used in your classroom, you won’t make mistakes. So to set the proper framework, decide the usage of your bins. Never allow your teachers to go in and just put items in bins, label the bins, and put things in the bins that they see fit especially if they don’t share the same framework knowledge as you.

Owner’s Tip

Finally, when you set up your classrooms, identify the usage of your bins and what they will be used for.

When you set the proper framework for the material, the storage units, and all the content in your classrooms, now you’re setting the standard which is actually called a framework.

Classroom Mistakes Part 2

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