classroom environment,  classroom management,  cleaning

Cleaning and Sanitizing

So what is the difference between cleaning and sanitizing? Most people use these terms interchangeably, but they aren’t the same thing, and when it comes to preschool germs they can make a huge difference!

If you aren’t familiar with the book Caring for Our Children, you’ve got to check it out.  This resource is published by the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education, and it gives recommendations for every possible health and safety topic that you could every come across while working in child care.  It is an incredible resource to have on hand when you need to look up how to handle specific situations, and when you’re creating program policies.

According to Caring for Our Children, cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting are very different tasks, which are defined as follows:

Understanding the differences between these three practices can help you better decide when to use each one – and in many cases child care licensing will want you to use a specific task depending on the purpose. For example, in my state cots have to be sanitized either weekly, or before being used by a different child, and cleaned every three months.  
So, now you know – and you’ll know a lot more if you go check out Caring for Our Children.  You can browse the different topics online or order a print version of the book for your program’s resource library.  

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