Establishing Routines
Posted by Hope Spencer on 17 Aug 2009 | Posted in: Classroom Management, Classroom Routines, Grade 1, Grades 2-3, Intermediate, Kindergarten, Planning and Curriculum, Preschool, The Mailbox
I know it sounds cliché, but I just can’t believe that it’s time to get ready for a new school year already! Preparing the classroom for my students’ arrival was one of my favorite things about teaching. I know that establishing a routine can make all the difference in the classroom, so I’ve scanned the August/September 2009 issues of The Mailbox® magazine to find tips you can incorporate into your planning.
Preschool: I use this simple system to quickly and easily track attendance. For each child, I place a card labeled with his photo and name in a pocket chart. When a child arrives, he moves his card from the chart to a nearby basket. After everyone has arrived for the day, I know at a glance who is present.
Kindergarten: Looking for a way to keep small classroom items at your fingertips? Use plastic cups! Pin plastic cups to bulletin boards and place items such as nametags, calendar pieces, or manipulatives inside. Or adhere a strip of magnetic tape to the back of a cup, attach it to a board, and put dry-erase markers inside.
Grade 1: To keep your class list at your fingertips, type your students’ names using a small point size. Then tape the list to the back of your school identification badge. You can count on it to be a timesaving reference during fire drills and any emergencies!
Grades 2-3: I use a simple rhyme activity to signal transition time. I ask a question, such as “Are you ready, Freddy?” and direct my students to answer with a rhyme, such as “Yes, Eddie.” It’s a quick way to get their attention, and my students like to be involved. To keep students’ interest, I change the names periodically throughout the year.
Intermediate: To keep my hall passes from being lost or germ-infested, I use badges that hang from my students’ necks. I write my name and room number on the back of each badge, laminate it, and punch a hole in the top corners. Then I thread each hole with yarn and tie a knot at the end to create a necklace. These handy badges are sturdier and easier to see than handheld ones.
Here’s to the best year ever!
Hope
Congratulations to Theresa F. from Glendale, Arizona. She is the winner of a copy of the K-1 Organize Now, May, book.
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34 Responses to “Establishing Routines”
More Comments Pages: « 1 2 [3] Show All Comments
More Comments Pages: « 1 2 [3] Show All Comments
With my class of 3 year olds, I always just take attendance on my own and never gave it much thought to let the children help with that task. Usually, during Circle Time, we will have a Good Morning song that introduces the children to one another - but this idea will reinforce that! Thanks!
I have attendance items that I changed monthly to go along with the major theme for the month. (apples-Sept,pumpkins-Oct,etc.) It really helps my preschoolers in recognizing their name and the others in the class.
I love the idea of using magnets or velcro to make the name tags for use in attnedance taking. Younger children love being able to use anything with magnets or velcro on them! Thanks!
Great idea for attendance using the picture on a tag and putting in a cup. Great organizational tool.
As a soon to be teacher it is amazing how clever you all get to be! Looking forward to coming up with my own ways to organize so that I a can someday pass along my knowledge! Thanks to you all!!!
I love the cup idea. Now, I am off to the store to buy some plastic cups and magnet strips.:)
Jill,
You’re so right about routines! I can’t even imagine what my classroom would be like without them…I shudder at the thought! Even myself, personally, I don’t function well without routine, imagine what it’s like for the kids without it! Good luck in the new school year, it sounds like you’ll be a great teacher!
In order to have students be responsible for something when they come in, I have them take care of attendance…well, sort of. I write each child’s name on a wooden stick (it actually looks like the old fashioned spoons you could eat ice cream with) and hot glue a magnet on the back (you could also do velcro too). When the kids come in in the morning their names are in a basket, but as each student comes in they put their name under one of the headings: I’m Here or Absent. Every week, a new student has the “attendance” job, so that person puts up the name(s) of the students that are absent that day. I teach 1st grade, so it’s a great way for students to learn name recognition. I also have two other signs: Boy and Girl. So when the kids have to go to the bathroom they just move their name from “I’m Here” to either “Boy” or “Girl.” They know that only one boy and one girl can go to the bathroom at a time, so if they see a name up there already they have to wait until that person comes back. Doing all of this solves two problems (1) I don’t have to keep listening to “Can I go to the bathroom?” and (2) I can just glance up at their names to see who’s here or not so I can quickly take attendance.
I just finished my student teaching, and during this experience, it became SO obvious to me that routines are very important to ensure a well-flowing classroom day! The cooperating teacher I was with did not have a lot of routines set up - so I attempted (halfway through the year) to set up routines. At the end of my experience, I had a chance to see other classrooms, and I took so many notes on routines they had!
I agree with making a ryhme or something fun for the students to be involved in when making transitions. I use to have my 3rd graders sing a song I found in one of the mailbox magazines a few years ago. It was something like: Here we go time to change, line up with our hands to our sides, faces looking forward, mouths of similing and here we go. The older kids in the upper grades always thought that class was over 5 mins before the bell rang. They thought they could cluster in groups and talk, well I burst their bubbler when I would fill in at times, I gave a pop quiz over the lesson we just finished. Each student had to answer a question in order to line up, it worked out great because students wanted to make sure their friends lined up quickly with them. Have a great year.