Think about the effort required to build a rocket ship with Legos, or to create mosaic tile patterns that fill half a tabletop.  Children engage daily in purposeful play and work that takes a great investment of their time, intellect, and effort.  When it is “clean up time”, often it is expected that the work be dismantled and all of the parts put back into their proper places. Imagine how frustrating this scenario might be.  What might happen if children could SAVE the “work in progress” to finish later?  At McKendree, we have found that encouraging kids to save work  supports their learning experience and sends a strong message:  “You and the work that you do are important!”  Children often return to the project with new insights and energy, and demonstrate more complex understandings.  Opportunities to encourage “pratical writing” also develop when work is saved — signs that tell the custodian to “please don’t move the blocks” to labels of ownership with first efforts at name writing.