Drying Racks

I was in the classroom the other day and one of my pet peeves was hit:  the drying rack

Now, there’s one thing if the drying rack is full; it means the children are busy creating.  It’s a completely different thing if the drying rack is stuffed full of so much that there is not way to squeeze in one more thing and all the paintings in there are weeks old.

Then, when the TOP of the drying rack is stacked with 2 or 3 piles of dried art work…that’s just wrong.

Drying racks are easy to keep clean of clutter.  Clear them out every day at nap time.  Put the art work either in the file to go home or in the file to be saved for portfolios.

A child should not have to stand by the rack, waiting for help in order to find space to put his work.

I make it a naptime job.  Just reorganize the art that is NOT dry yet (you know, the one’s full of so much glue that it will take about 5 days to dry).  I put these on the bottom rows because they children never go to the bottom rows when looking for space; they go to the top 3 rows.

Then, with the dry things, determine where they go (portfolio or home).  With the items that you don’t know who they belong to, make a pile to bring to afternoon circle.  Take a minute to find out whose they are, if no one claims them, put them next to the go-home box.  If no one claims them in a day or two, they go in the trash.

It really is one of the easiest and least time consuming part of keeping an organized classroom.