I am a newbie so maybe not the best person to give advice, but the one thing
I thought of was more cleanup time. I've found with my young kids that they
need more time than 5 minutes...unless the project is really simple. I have so
much trouble getting them to get it together and clean up. I do offer
rewards for those who clean up first, which really does motivate them...but you
might want to plan on maybe 10 minutes at first and see how it goes. If you find
that they can clean up faster, then give them more time to work the next time.
I suppose it all depends on how you will have everything set up and what
supplies you will be using. I find that I need to keep walking around to each
table and commenting on how wonderfully a table is cleaning up or how another
table needs to catch up and start cleaning. Sometimes I have to practically
take a project away from the student because he or she just won't stop working!
Of course, I'd much rather that than have a student who won't work at all.
Definitely make them responsible for cleaning up. Some days time gets away from
us, and I will help them clean up, but on the days when I've given them fair
warning ("five more minutes to work and then we need to clean up") and plenty
of time to clean up, I will not let them line up until the table looks
perfect. I also assign jobs to students, like one student will go around with the
trash can and collect all of the scraps. I always get volunteers. Good luck!!!
