Start the year on the right foot when you organize or streamline your classroom with our ideas for using floor marking tape and decals in schools. Painter’s tape, duct tape, and other quick, cheap solutions aren’t durable enough to stand up to the day-to-day rigors of a classroom environment—constant play, curious fingers picking at edges, the scuffs of shoes, and the scrapes of desks and chairs. These options leave also residue when removed, adding time to classroom set-up and end-of-year clean-up.
The best tape for classroom floors is easy to apply, easy to remove, and strong enough to stand up to extended use. Our Superior Mark™ floor tape and hook-and-loop carpet tape tick all those boxes. Here are some of our top floor marking ideas for schools, from hallways to classrooms to the cafeteria.
Color-Coded Floor Tape for Classroom Organization
Use high-traffic floor marking tape and signs to improve classroom organization. Amp up your color-coding system and designate different areas with floor marking tape. To create a system that works for your classroom, consider these organization tips and ideas:
- Outline free play spaces with green tape, project areas with yellow, and the teacher’s desk with red tape that communicates “off-limits.”
- Organize the classroom by associating colors with the time of day. For example, blue-taped areas could be open for use in the morning and orange-taped spaces reserved for the afternoons. Visual cues help students remember the plan.
- Coordinate group project time by taping colored borders around sections of the classroom. Create groups by pairing names with colors, so students recognize their assigned section at a glance.
- Mark desk locations with floor tape outlines or pallet corner markers to show where chairs and desks should be returned after small group projects.
- Create seating arrangements with tape for classroom floors, whether carpet, tile, or vinyl. Taped dots or X-markers show where students should sit during circle or story time.
Hands-On Education Ideas Using Classroom Floor Tape
Use floor tape for classrooms to create learning opportunities and hands-on projects that complement your lesson plans. High-traffic floor tape stands up to a school year’s worth of fun and learning and is removed easily when modules change. Easy to apply with minimal prep, our floor tape and signs are an ideal solution for interactive learning and practice. Try some of these favorite ideas:
- Create a number line on the floor for students to use during math lessons. This kid-sized visual approach helps students grasp addition or subtraction concepts.
- Create an alphabet line for practicing ABCs, learning letter sounds, or matching uppercase and lowercase letters. Repurpose the line throughout the year as students learn and grow. Start with letter recognition and move on to sounds and first letters as they advance.
- Full-floor scrabble, tic-tac-toe, or checkers bring big fun to the classroom. Giant game boards outlined using adhesive-backed floor tape will stand up to desks sliding around, so you can rearrange and play when it’s time for fun and games, while hook-and-loop-backed floor tape holds fast through daily foot traffic and more.
- Use floor tape to craft a timeline of all the historic events you’ll cover throughout the year. Add custom-printed signs to accent each major milestone and provide additional context.
- Create size comparisons between everyday objects and the subjects of science lessons, such as dinosaurs or jungle animals.
- Supersize your masking tape angles lessons with reusable hook-and-loop carpet tape. Outline shapes to accompany geometry lessons, practice fractions with taped circles, or mark out rulers to measure anything from a pencil to a person.
- Provide opportunities for pretend play with taped roadways, mountains, and runways. Durable Superior Mark floor marking tape stands up to feet, toy cars, and cleaning.
- Tape a straight line at the front of the room for use in question-and-answer games that test student’s understanding. For example, you might say, “Step up to the green line if this is true: Abe Lincoln was the first president.”
Classroom floor markings can be more than practical. These solutions serve dual purposes as both themed decoration and tools for hands-on learning. Creative school floor decoration ideas can bring a classroom theme to life. We can create custom-printed floor signs and tape to help you achieve that vision.
Organization Tips for Arts Education in Schools
Use floor tape to organize music and band spaces, theater departments, or other arts education areas. Give tools and supplies a place, help students know where to go, and make the most of your space with durable floor tape.
- Mark lines for music or band practice. Use colored tape to designate where students should sit or stand, whether by voice part, instrument, height, or teacher. For easy staging and transitions between performances on recital night, mirror the color scheme and tape layout on the stage.
- Design life-size visuals for music lessons. Create a giant staff on the floor using lines of tape to teach students musical concepts like notes, lines, and spaces. Play floor games to make music lessons even more interactive.
- Organize the art room. Color-coded spaces let students know which tools they can use and which they need permission to access. Or, use tape to mark borders around work areas where paint, glue, glitter, and clay should remain, and spaces for drying or storing finished projects.
- Teach workshop safety through visual cues. Give shop students some real-life experience by implementing Lean/5S methods right in the workshop area, giving them a head start at learning the ropes for any future jobs in manufacturing or warehousing.
- Use the same tools as theater pros. Give the theater department a longer-lasting solution with the product professionals prefer. Use gaffer tape to provide placement cues for props, set pieces, and actors on the stage—and to keep things moving smoothly in the wings.
Improve Traffic Flow in Schools With Visual Cues
Returning to school means learning new routines, traffic patterns, and building layouts. Letting students and visitors know where they’re going and how to get there helps create a safe, comfortable learning environment. Signage is a helpful tool, but floor tape and signs can improve efforts to keep students, teachers, and staff moving along, especially in high-traffic areas.
- Use custom floor tape or signage to provide color-coded or themed directions to specific areas: A series of footprints to lead to the main office, a repeating print displaying a dashed line and bouncing ball to direct to the playground, or arrows printed with the school mascot to point toward the gym.
- Remind visitors of check-in requirements with custom floor marking tape that directs traffic to the main office. Our Superior Mark tape stands up to the wear and tear at main entrances—boots, shoes, dirt, rain, or snow are no match for our industrial floor tape—and freezer-rated tape is a perfect option for vestibules where the temperatures may drop during winter. You can also clearly mark areas where visitors aren’t allowed access, increasing student and staff safety.
- Line-up is important for getting young students from one spot to the next. Streamline the process with a single strip of tape that outlines the waiting area for morning drop-off, the start of a classroom line, or the cafeteria line. Or, make line-up more fun with line-up dots in the shape of a caterpillar, a series of stars, or floor signs with cheerful graphics.
- Create lanes in busy hallways to encourage one-way traffic on each side, keeping traffic flowing while students walk between classrooms, the cafeteria, and multipurpose spaces.
Floor Marking Ideas to Improve Health and Safety in Schools
Floor marking tape offers clear visual cues for the health and safety of students, staff, and visitors in the event of an emergency. Display easy-to-understand messages using a combination of tape, signage, and floor markers for classrooms and hallways.
- Promote healthy hygiene habits with easy-to-spot markers for hand washing or sanitizer stations, so kids can easily see where to clean up.
- Mark safety equipment and spaces so it’s easy to find when needed. Use pre-cut kits or custom signage to highlight the location of fire extinguishers, first aid kits, the nurse’s office, or spill clean-up stations.
- Use high-traffic floor tape and decals to mark emergency exits and routes in schools. Students can practice the outlined route during fire drills so they’re prepared for worst-case scenarios.
Of course, there’s more to safety than the indoors. We also carry pavement markings, perfect for designating student drop-off or pick-up locations or organizing traffic flow.
Carpeted classrooms, libraries, and other learning spaces need organization, but tape can leave a damaging residue or even ruin carpeted floors. Fortunately, our hook-and-loop-backed carpet tape is a custodian-approved option that sticks again and again without leaving damage or residue, so you can apply, remove, and reuse easily throughout carpeted spaces.
Organize your hallways, classrooms, cafeteria, and learning spaces with Superior Mark floor and carpet tape and signage. Easy application and minimal prep mean you’re ready for the school year in no time, and the tape is designed to stand up to use season after season. We can also print custom floor decals for classrooms to support classroom organization, seating, or play—whatever you envision for your space, we can help make it a reality.
As advocates for visual cues for productive and safe workplaces, we believe our products can be solutions in school environments, as well. Explore our Resource Center to learn more about the benefits and applications of industrial high-traffic floor tape and signs.
