Do your kiddos always balk at cleaning up? Transitions can be difficult for some kiddos to make, so I have found that preschool age and younger kiddos respond well to clean-up songs. You can use the Barney song below or make up one of your own. I like to use a song like this:

“Johnny, Johnny is cleaning up, Who else, who else, is cleaning up?”

When I put a child’s name into the song, they have more motivation to join in the cleaning. I also will use competition between kiddos if I have a big enough group: boys vs. girls, three-year olds vs. four-year olds, etc. Most kids are competitive by nature, so they enjoy cleaning this way every once in a while. Sometimes, I will give each kiddo a “job” of what they need to clean. They like knowing when their “job” is over, they are done with cleaning. Try to mix it up a bit with what you use for the clean-up transition to keep each method as effective as possible. Happy cleaning!