Easy, practical, CLEAN bathroom passes - a freebie!

I teach second grade.  They do NOT always remember to wash their hands.  So bathroom passes, which are a necessity in the elementary classroom, have always grossed me out.

• If it's something the kids carry to the bathroom, where do they put it while they're there?
• If it's something they wear - like a lanyard or clip - there's a lot of touching involved (put it on, take it off). 
• If it's something they leave on their desk so the teacher knows they're missing from the room, they still have to touch it. 
• And remember, they don't always wash their hands.  No matter how many times I remind them.  (Lots, btw.)
• So just, ew.

Then I saw this idea on Pinterest a few years ago, the lightbulb went off, and I've used it ever since:

The child places the hand sanitizer bottle on his/her desk and leaves the room.  When he/she returns, the bottle gets returned to its place on my desk - at which point the child dispenses a pea-sized amount and rubs it in on the way back to their desk.

Voila.  All my OCD problems solved. ;)

• The bottles live on my desk by the tissues, so after you throw your tissue away - hey, have some hand sanitizer.
• That was an impressive sneeze!  Go wash your hands.  Or have a squirt.
• I DO stop the girls who want to wear it as perfume, and I DO have a stern talk with the class once someone discovers that a squirt of Purell on a tissue easily wipes their Sharpie name off their desk.  But all in all, I think it's a win. :)

You can pick up the labels in my TpT store for free!  You'll have to buy your own Purell bottles ;) but they tend to be in the back-to-school sale sections in most stores right now.  And I'm sure these labels will work with other brands of hand sanitizer; I just like the squareish shapes of the Purell bottles.

Step one: measure the label on your bottles and print the page you need:

Step two: cut and laminate:

> I took this picture before laminating, but I DO laminate them because if I need to switch bottles midway through the year, I can just peel off the tape and reapply the same labels to a new bottle.  I plan to refill the bottles as the year goes on, but sometimes they get dropped and cracked, and I am stingy with my ink. ;)

Step three: use sealing or packing tape to wrap entirely around the label on both sides of the bottle.  Having each bottle two-sided means that no matter which way it gets left on the desk, you can tell quickly and easily where the girls' pass is and where the boys' pass is.

This year, I bought bigger Purell bottles (whoops) and had to make bigger labels.  The freebie in my store has both sizes; measure your bottles and only print the page you need.

Happy (clean) teaching!