As the summer winds down, students and teachers prepare to return to the classroom.
Students prepare by having a last few weeks of summer fun and purchasing back to school items.
Teachers prepare by organizing and designing their classrooms for maximum productivity.
Superior Mark™ floor tape and our Superior Mark™ carpet tape can be great tools for teachers and instructors in the classroom and aid in visual organization efforts.
Smart Playrooms, a company that designs and creates high quality playrooms and learning centers for clients around the U.S., uses our carpet tape in their 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.
Take a quick look on Pinterest or on popular blogs frequented by teachers and you’ll find countless images and stories about how instructors find value in using floor tape or carpet tape in classrooms.
Here are some of the most used and most creative ideas from teachers around the Web:
- 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.
While it maybe tempting to use a cheap vinyl tape for these ideas – don’t do it. The cost in chemicals and manpower involved in cleaning these tapes up off floors and carpet, or even replacing carpet, does not make them cost effective.
Our Superior Mark™ floor tape and hook & loop carpet tape is resilient enough to survive industrial settings, but peel up easily with no sticky residue. Other floor tapes leave a sticky layer of adhesive on the floor when you peel it up. In fact, many schools and education facilities won’t let teachers use the typical duct tape on the floor because of the time, money and effort it takes the custodial staff to get it up and clean the floor where it was applied.
Call us today to get a sample packet to see if our products can help you in your classroom, 866-284-1541 or live chat with us on our website, stop-painting.com.
