In my years of classroom experience, I have found that the more I encourage children to take care of their own property the more responsive and cooperative they become.
Naptime is an example of how children can be taught to take pride in doing something well and then enjoy the results.
Naptime begins in this classroom by having each child get their blankets out of their own cubby.
The cots are already placed on the floor and after getting blankets (and sometimes a naptime toy) the children place their items on their cot.
This little girl demonstrates for me how she can neatly make her “bed” all by herself…
And when one child finds making the bed to be something of value or fun, the other children want to try it too…
And once the cots are all made up, the lights will dim and the soft music will play and the children will rest in a place where they are capable of doing things all by themselves.