 Throughout the day, we encounter many times that we need to follow a similar routine in order to achieve a comfortable classroom. So one of those instances is cleaning up our room after playtime or after a lesson. So I like to teach my students how to clean up a room from the first day of class. What we need to do is we teach it in four steps. So the first step is as the students are playing, I give them a warning. I say, you have five minutes until we need to clean up our room. And they'll keep playing and they will know that, oh, it's okay. I have five minutes to finish what I'm doing. And then after a while, I will give them another warning. You have three minutes until we clean up our toys. And they'll keep playing and they'll start realizing, oh, I need to finish up. And then I'll give them their one minute warning. You have one minute until we clean up our toys. And they'll start realizing, all right, I've got to be done. I have to be calm. I can be done. And then I will stop and I will go and turn on a song. I turn on a song because it is a specific amount of time, usually about two and a half, three minutes. And the music in the song gives children cues as to how much time they have left to pick up. So I'll turn on my song and the children will know to start picking up and putting away their toys back on the shelf. First they take care of themselves. They clean up their toys and their area. And then they go and they help others clean up their space. After that, I have the children have a designated spot when they're all done cleaning that they meet me, which is usually my rug. I have a rug they sit on. And they sit down and they cross their legs and they wait. While they're cleaning up, I'm giving them praise. I'm telling them, good job. This looks nice and clean. And so then they all know when they're done, they can go sit on their rug until I am ready and the song is over. When the song is over, I join them. I tell them, thank you for cleaning up. Our room looks nice. You took good care of our things. Now we can do something else. And the children know, one, that they did a good job. Two, they took care of their surroundings and they're proud of what they did. And three, things are now calm, so they can go ahead and focus on the next activity we have at hand.