Cleaning Brushes Using the 3 Bucket System

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The students in my elementary art classes all want to clean brushes -- and they usually do it badly--each one making a different kind of mess in their own special way.   Not to mention all the water they wasted.  Without a sink in the room that means wasting water hauled in buckets across campus from the sink in the teacher's room.

One day, while hauling water and dreaming of being a child again under the free and open skies of summer camp, a solution popped into my head.... how simple! (Note to parents: summer camp really does prepare a child for life).  At camp each camper washed her own dishes -- rinsing, washing and rinsing again down a conga line of 3 buckets. In the art studio it goes like this:

  1. Line up the early finishers with brushes in hand.  
  2. Set the pace with a quick round of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (it takes about 20 seconds).
  3. Students sing again while 1-2 kids move down the line swishing their brush in each bucket along with the song.  
    • Bucket 1:  "Twinkle twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are." (tap  tap tap).  When the line of the song ends he taps the brush 3 times on the bucket edge and moves to bucket 2 to repeat the process.
    • Bucket 2: "Up above the world so high.  Like a diamond in the sky." (tap tap tap).  Move to bucket 3 repeat.
    • Bucket 3:  "Twinkle twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are."  (tap tap tap).  Place clean brush in the basket. 
It takes about 30 seconds for 1 student to complete the process.  If 2 kids go down the line together, it takes about 10 minutes for each kid to wash an individual brush.  Once they learn the process, a kid can effectively wash 2-3 brushes at the same time, shortening the time it takes to clean 30 brushes to about 4-5 minutes. 

Let me know how the 3 Bucket System works for you!



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