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tidy up time music or song.....I need one!


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I have been asked to find a good song or piece of music to play while we tidy up, nothing too frantic as we put something on today and they went mental and rushed about throwing stuff into the cupboard and not exactly tidying up! ( that's the children not the staff! ) so if you know of a good song or piece of motivational music, I would love to hear from you, thanks.

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If singing works for you, here are the words to ours. If you call me I can sing them over the phone):

'We tidy away. We tidy away. We may no longer play. Home time is on its way. Tidy away, tidy away.'

'Everything in its place, everything in its place. A place for everything, everything in its place. Everything in its place. A place for everything.

'Now its time to tidy up. Let's be busy pixies. Busy pixies hard at work, tidying everything away.'

'Many hands make light work. Many hands make light work. Work together, work together. Many hands.'

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I found a piece of Scottish folk music which was the right length and we use that. Fastish but as it was an unfamiliar tune it seemed to just speed them up rather than making them daft (unless they were already in a silly mood anyway!)

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So recorded music is the trick! Singing clearly isn't, with us at the moment...

I find 'tidy up' songs irritating - but that's probably just me being a disagreeable old bat :ph34r:xD

We don't routinely use music either - just a five minute warning - something along the lines of "5 more minutes now and then it will be big tidy up time" :1b oh and a bit of "who is big enough to tidy the sand/dough/puzzles/whatever" - usually has the children flocking to the area to show me just how 'big' they are ;)

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Guest sn0wdr0p

Same here Sunnyday. My staff have tried it in the past but you could guess that 3 out of five times the CD they wanted had gone walkabout and honest it wasn't me. We let the children select their own music to play so CD's can sometimes end up in silly places - a favourite is inside dens!.

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I always used to just use an online egg timer but last year I had a little boy who was absolutely obsessed with both timers and numbers and would spend the entire time just watching and counting. The others were also starting to slow down a lot which is when I introduced the music. It seemed to re-energise them. This year I have a little one who thinks the sound the timer makes is the most hysterically funny thing ever and waits for it to go off them leaps up and down cackling hysterically and flapping his arms around. Mind you, he thinks the music is funny too and spends his time dancing to that! So far to get any tidying I have to literally take him by the hand and talk him through every move.

When I have the music on the deal was always that if they finished before hand they could have a dance! I also did/do lots of the 'who can be the best at...' making the reading corner look tidy type comments. We had smiley faces awarded to the fastest and best tidiers and the team with the most at the end of the week would get a special tidy up sticker. The team who was first to finish on each day also got to tidy our little outdoor space which they thought was great as it meant they were first!

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I always used to find 'who is going to be helpful?' worked better than just a general request to tidy up. The music does seem to help with the much younger ones as they recognise what it means, and I have noticed a couple of them singing along as they put things away

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I always used to just use an online egg timer but last year I had a little boy who was absolutely obsessed with both timers and numbers and would spend the entire time just watching and counting. The others were also starting to slow down a lot which is when I introduced the music. It seemed to re-energise them. This year I have a little one who thinks the sound the timer makes is the most hysterically funny thing ever and waits for it to go off them leaps up and down cackling hysterically and flapping his arms around. Mind you, he thinks the music is funny too and spends his time dancing to that! So far to get any tidying I have to literally take him by the hand and talk him through every move.

When I have the music on the deal was always that if they finished before hand they could have a dance! I also did/do lots of the 'who can be the best at...' making the reading corner look tidy type comments. We had smiley faces awarded to the fastest and best tidiers and the team with the most at the end of the week would get a special tidy up sticker. The team who was first to finish on each day also got to tidy our little outdoor space which they thought was great as it meant they were first!

I have a feeling if we use music it will turn into some mental fling stuff disco, but I am pleased that a member of staff is willing to try something different lol

might try Queen "we will rock you" .....short and they seem to know it from football ect

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Our tidy up time is quite structured to prevent the 'going nuts and chucking it all under the home corner kitchen'.

 

We all sit down and a group of children is assigned an area to tidy. They are given a photo to take with them of the area in a tidy state. An adult goes with each group and helps them to make it look like the photo. We have a puppet called Tidy-up Tyler who comes and inspects each area after it has been tidied. The children love it. Sometimes Tyler awards stickers that have a photo of him on them and say "Tidy-up Tyler says 'Well done!'.

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