Now that's the power of Pine-sol, baby!

I consider myself extremely organized. Although the Art Department consists of myself and one other art teacher, we run an incredibly tight ship!  We work hard to "train" our students in the first days of school, so they learn to take ownership over their own work space in the art room.  My fearless leader and I maintain clean, orderly classrooms and we rely on quarterly spring cleaning sessions.  After all, there is a ridiculous amount of supplies to keep track of; paint brushes, canvas, paint, paper, clay, glazes, sculpture carving tools, and let's not forget the computers, projectors, printers and scanners.  Speaking of technology in the art room, I caught myself typing on my classroom computer with my hands caked in crusty dried clay, and it's times like this that remind me that a little clay dust on the mouse won't result in the apocalypse.  My hands currently look and feel like an old elephant hide...even my students will tell me I need some lotion for my ashy skin.  My students love to help, and strangely enough, they will complain if they don't have enough time to clean their work tables before the dismissal bell rings.  Honestly, I wouldn't be able to maintain such a great art room without the help of my students, the nightly cleaning crew and good ol' Pine-sol.  As long as a behavior and cleaning routine is established from the beginning, keeping the "techie stuff" clean in the art room is really not an issue.