As all teachers know, keeping students organized and on task is a key part of delivering a good education to pupils. Even the best teachers know that students forming and staying in lines can be tricky – and often lead to disorganized, loud and stressful moments. Teaching and classroom blogs all seem to agree that one way to keep students in a productive line in classrooms and hallways is to have a visual cue for them to follow – a physical line. As students focus on walking on the line, this keeps them on the task of moving forward and reduces opportunities for distraction.
Floor Marking Tape Makes School Lines Better
Many teachers first reach for duct tape or painters tape to create their keep-in-line lines. Unfortunately, this tape doesn’t stay in place very long and many times when it comes up, it leaves a gunky, sticky goo behind. In fact, many school custodians have advocated for not allowing ANY tape on carpets as it is very labor intensive to get the adhesive off the carpets, and in some cases, completely ruins the carpet.
Our solution is Stop-Painting.com’s Superior Mark™ Floor Tape and Carpet Tape.
Our Superior Mark™ Floor Tape is great for uncarpeted floors. It is designed and manufactured to withstand industrial use, and we’ve found in school hallways, it’s virtually indestructible. Superior Mark™ Floor Tape comes in 2” and 4” widths and in a variety of colors and can even be customized with repeating messages. Use a message like SHH! QUIET IN HALLS, or even something educational like multiplication facts.
Superior Mark™ Floor Tape is easy to apply and easy to remove in one continuous piece when you need to amend your layout.
Use Carpet Tape on Carpets
Superior Mark™ Carpet Tape is equally durable on carpets. Teachers use carpet tape or tape on classroom floors to designate where students should stand or sit for circle time or other less formal learning spots other than desks, where different educational centers are located in the classroom or to use as a visual aid to show boundaries for desks, people, tech equipment or other safety reasons. As stated before, placing adhesive tape on carpeted floors can damage and even destroy carpets. Many schools have decided the cost in new carpet or labor to remove the adhesive is cost-prohibitive and forbid teachers using any kind of tape on school carpets.
Our Superior Mark™ Carpet Tape is made with our same industrial strength PVC tape, but lined with Velcro, rather than an adhesive.
Smart Playrooms, a company that designs and creates high quality playrooms and learning centers for clients around the U.S., uses our Superior Mark™ Carpet Tape in its popular designs. Smart Playrooms owner, Kerry Bowen-Poole said as a former educator and mother, she firmly believes that the physical environment and layout of a room greatly impacts the behavior, learning and playing that happens in a room. “Researchers for many years have noted the importance of setting up an inviting, functional, and organized environment for children in schools, and we take all of this research into account when we are designing play spaces for residences or commercial properties,” Bowen-Poole added.
Here’s a list of creative solutions for using floor tape and carpet tape in the classroom:
- Hallway orderliness – Keeps lines straight and on task. Some schools run tape down either side of hall for one-way traffic on each side.
- Circle time – Helps to keep kids focused. Teachers apply tape in a circle or square and children understand in that area, they are to be focused on the teacher. Teachers like to use this because students typically look at being allowed to sit on floor versus their desk is a privilege. They understand to stay inside the circle or square, they must behave.
- In/Out areas – Designated areas for learning. Similar to circle time, some teachers outline a smaller area where students come for small groups or one-on-one teaching. Some teachers will put one to three desks together in a “green square” or a “blue tape area” and kids are assigned “green box time” or “blue box time.”
- Line up tape – Tape is put on floor in front of door to designate a straight and orderly line for children to adhere to before leaving classroom.
- Desk corners – Our pallet corners are great tools for placing around the perimeter of an area where a desk should be located. This helps to prevent kids from “migrating” their desks from where they were originally placed. Children can clearly see where their desk belongs and keep it inside the tape grid.
- Assessment line – Teachers put a straight line at the front of the room and use for question/answer games. For example, a teacher may say, “Step up to the green line if this is true: Abe Lincoln was the first president.”
- Sit squares – Instructors may use tape to create boxes to designate where individual children are to sit on the floor.
- Line up rows – Music teachers have used our tape to create color-coded lines and spaces for various purposes in music rooms. For instance, altos line up on blue lines, sopranos on green lines; wind instrument players on red lines, brass instruments on yellow lines.
As advocates for visual cues for productive and safe workplaces, we believe our products can be solutions in school environments as well. Call us today at 1-866-284-1541 to help you find the right products to get your school organized and more productive.
