Lori posted this as part of a personal post yesterday:
After a challenging start to this school year, when faced with even more challenges my students exceeded my expectation and showed me how our hard work is really paying off!
It's really easy, with the expectations of high stakes testing, to feel as though you need to jump into the curriculum as fast as you possibly can to cover everything that needs to be covered. But how much instructional time is lost as you have to answer multiple procedure based questions, and you have to deal with interruptions, socialization, and other off task behavior.
Taking the time to establish routines, while it may make you feel a bit panicked as the days tick by at the beginning of the year, will actually SAVE you time the entire rest of the year. Whether you call them routines, norms, or protocols, having your students help you establish how things will work in your classroom and then practicing their ideas is the best thing you can do to complete all the tasks that need to be done to help your students find success as they continue on to the next grade and through the rest of their school career.
What types of routines have we focused on? Beyond The First 8 Days for establishing the habits of the Leader in Me program, there have been many! Ours include:
After a challenging start to this school year, when faced with even more challenges my students exceeded my expectation and showed me how our hard work is really paying off!
It's really easy, with the expectations of high stakes testing, to feel as though you need to jump into the curriculum as fast as you possibly can to cover everything that needs to be covered. But how much instructional time is lost as you have to answer multiple procedure based questions, and you have to deal with interruptions, socialization, and other off task behavior.
Taking the time to establish routines, while it may make you feel a bit panicked as the days tick by at the beginning of the year, will actually SAVE you time the entire rest of the year. Whether you call them routines, norms, or protocols, having your students help you establish how things will work in your classroom and then practicing their ideas is the best thing you can do to complete all the tasks that need to be done to help your students find success as they continue on to the next grade and through the rest of their school career.
What types of routines have we focused on? Beyond The First 8 Days for establishing the habits of the Leader in Me program, there have been many! Ours include:
- Tech Bootcamps: Becky got this idea after reading the book The Eduprotocol Field Guide. While every class is different, the tech tools we are using are the same. Becky created tech bootcamp activities for Google Slides, Draw, and Docs, FlipGrid, Kahoot, and Schoology that focused on community building (getting to know each other) and our 8 habits. Students created slideshows about themselves, visualized their goals, shared our ideas and drafts for our class mission statements, and practicing submitting assignments and discussions. You could use any activity to introduce and practice these tools, and you'll be saving time when you use them late in the year because the students already have "played" and learned the tools.
- Organizational Routines: Lori has worked to find organizational routines to help make transitions run more smoothly and help the students feel more prepared for success. She color-coded the cords, computers, and cart for the Chromebook storage, so students are sure to find the correct numbered slot and cord to return and charge their computers. She also set up my pencil system so her students never have to worry about having a pencil when they come to class. Each student has a plastic toothbrush holder that has their student number written on it and should always have two pencils inside. These pencil holders are kept in a numbered pocket chart hanging in her room. There is a bin on her counter filled with sharpened pencils and a bin that she labeled dull pencils. Students come in first thing and pick up their pencil holder and switch out any dull pencils for sharpened ones (they may only take a sharpened one if they put one in the dull bin to replace it). At the end of class they put their pencils back in the pocket chart for the next day. One of the leadership roles in her classroom is in charge of sharpening dull pencils and checking to make sure everyone returned their pencil holders at the end of the day. She doesn't have to hear kids exclaim, “I don’t have a pencil," and the kids don't have to worry about being embarrassed or shamed for not having supplies.
- Classroom Community: Making time to build a safe and caring environment has been a big goal for Amy this year. While completing curriculum is important, understanding that students' basic needs to feel safe and like they belong is the foundation for any learning to take place. To help with that Amy established Morning Meetings every Monday and Friday. These meetings focus on developing good communication skills and helping students develop the 7 Habits that are the foundation of our Leader in Me program. Games and discussions help students learn these valuable skills and build relationships with each other. Amy also enhances her community by putting the students in charge of leadership roles. As a class the students determine the jobs needed to make the classroom run smoothly, students apply for their jobs using a google form, and then they work as a team to make sure all of the roles are completed daily. Giving students and voice and power in the classroom helps them see their worth and gives them a sense of belonging or ownership in these classrooms. The students apply for new jobs on a monthly basis.
These are just a few examples of the strong routines we establish at the beginning of the year is the key to a successful school year. If you would like to learn more about the specific steps we take to set up these routines or other routines in our classroom, please feel free to drop us an email or contact us via Twitter.
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