Helping Hand

When it comes to keeping up with my classroom, it's important that the scholars play a huge role in it. In addition to making it a lot easier to keep the classroom clean and organized, I want to teach them responsibilities and establish a sense of ownership in their classroom. And I've noticed that when I teach them to be in charge of their classroom, they are as good at keeping it neat and organized as I am.

When I came up with my classroom jobs, my goal was to have names of jobs that mimic real occupations. Obviously, there's not a career in sharpening pencils, so some of the names are a bit of a stretch. But many of them give me a chance to talk about different kinds of jobs the scholars might be interested in one day.

This is the board I organize my jobs. It's a poster from Dollar Tree with laminated job title card that are velcroed to pockets. That way, if I decide to change some of the jobs, it's easy to switch the cards out. I currently have space for 16 jobs, but I only have 15 scholars this year, so I removed one of them. And the scholars names are written on the top of index cards. When I have more scholars than jobs, those who don't have a job for the week are "on vacation."

Here's a list of the all classroom jobs with description, both current and past:

Navigator – line leader

Security – helps remind other scholars how to behave in the hallway

Teacher assistant – helps with any miscellaneous task or when a task is too big for one of the other jobs

Substitute – does the job for anyone that is absent

Courier – takes notes or items to the office or other teachers

Material manager – helps pass out papers and materials

Secretary – updates the calendar and schedule at the end of the day

Pencil supervisor – collects and sharpens pencils at the end of the day

Sanitation engineer – take out recycle and trash at the end of the day

Clean-up crew – make sure all supplies are put away and rugs are straightened at the end of the day

Librarian – organize and straighten the classroom library at the end of the day

Custodian – make sure floor is clean at the end of the day

Technician – check Chromebook station is tidy at the end of the day

Restoration artist – clean the whiteboards and reset lunch magnets at the end of the day

Banker – helps work with the money used in our classroom economy

Photographer – uses classroom camera to take photos

Center Clerks – helps with organizing materials with centers

Mailman – pass out papers into the scholars' mailboxes

Zookeeper – helps take care of the class pet

News Anchor –  shares news with the class

Sub Binder

I recently needed to take 3 days off, so you know what that means...sub plans. And since I had to make 3 days worth of lessons, I figured this would be a good chance to make my sub binder, a project that I've wanted to do for years.

At my previous school, I had created emergency plans. Though the plans covered topics independently of what I had been teaching, it was wonderful knowing if I needed to call out, I had plans already made. But at my current school, I work with 3 other members and we stay together in lessons. So when I need to take a day off, I need my sub to teach where I left over. Therefore, emergency plans are not helpful.

With that in mind, I wanted to create a binder that would provide the sub with what they need to know while also making it less work to type up plans when I need them.

Below is a link to the dividers I use. Feel free to use them for ideas for what you could include.

I started with introduction letter and a table of contents.

I divided my binder into 6 sections. The first section is scholars information. Here, I included the roster, notes on scholars, helpful hands, and WIN group. Our school organizes WIN (What I Need) by having the scholars all regroup and go to different classes for the targeted skill, so obviously it's important to let my sub know about that movement.

The notes about scholars include 4 sections. One section is for scholars who are in our Check In Check Out program, which is part of our PBIS system. The next section is for scholars pulled out, followed by a section for scholars with medical needs. And then, there is an other section is case there are other notes that don't fit into the first three sections.

My helpful hands sheet has two things. First, I let my sub know of some dependable scholars s/he can turn to should s/he have any questions. The second sections is a list of the classroom jobs I have and what they do.

The second section is classroom information. Here I include the daily schedule, a class tour, where to find supplies, and fast finisher work.

The next section is school information. It includes a quick reference of school and staff info as well as a phone extension list.

The third section is emergency plans. I was sure to include extra copies of the school emergency plans, such as fire drills, tornado drills, and ALICE.

This next section was the most time consuming to make. It explains the behavior plans for our school. We use PBIS at our school, so I wanted to make sure to include what PBIS is, how it is used in our school, and what the sub can do to help keep strong classroom management.

The last section is just a form for the sub to fill out about the day.

I've talked to some subs and I've heard the complaint that too much information can be daunting. So I also including a quick reference flip book that has the most important things in a nutshell. Stay tuned for information about this resource!

We all know what a pain planning for a sub is, so hopefully these ideas help you get things organized to make it easier to take those needed days off.

Anchor Charts 2.0

Just like any teacher of the 21st century, I love anchor charts. They are a great reference for the scholars while learning their new skill. I love the moments when I'm assessing the scholars, and they turn to the correlating anchor chart for help. And like most teachers, I tend to Pinterest ideas for anchor charts relating to the next topic I plan to teach. So many great ideas are out there, why reinvent the wheel?

But one thing I read in the last couple years was a criticism of the way most of us do anchor charts. Unfortunately, I don't remember the source, but the author mentioned that premade anchor charts (you know the kind, the "Pinterestable" ones) are not best practice for the scholars. The creation of anchor charts should involve the scholars. They should be interactive and made with the scholars. But let's face it, the anchor charts we find on Pinterest require being made ahead of time, at least if we want them to look that good.

So one of my mini professional goals is to create more interactive anchor charts. Now, I am far from where I hope to be, but I've started the journey.

With this new objective in mind, I thought about the logistics I needed to consider in order to make my anchor charts interactive. First of all,  I would need to plan them ahead of time. Additionally, making an anchor chart from scratch during class time would be incredibly time consuming. So I needed to find ways to make sure class time will used wisely. And then there's the worry about remaking the same chart every year instead of being able to reuse it. If I laminate it, it would be less editable, so I would need to find ways that still involve the scholars. So in a nutshell, I wanted anchor charts that were partially made and laminated for reuse while also being interactive.

My first idea was incredibly simple: leaving blank spaces and filling it in with the scholars. I would have my chart laminated, and then I could use wet-erase markers to complete it with the scholars. The wet-erase lasts so much longer than dry erase, and yet they still erase with just a squirt of water and rag. And we all have boxes of wet-erase markers somewhere tucked away from the time of overheads. 

Here you see an example of my noun anchor chart. The main definitions and outline is already made. Then the scholars helped come up with the examples.

The second way required a little more prep, but once more very simple. I used premade cards that are added to the chart by the scholars. I like this option when the topic doesn't have a lot of examples that the scholars can think of themselves, as in there are specific answer that leave little room to interpretation. I have the cards premade and pass them out the scholars. Then the scholars are involved in adding them to the right place of the anchor chart.

Here's an example: This is my author's purpose anchor chart. The scholars are given cards of examples of questions to ask to determine the author's purpose, and they tape it in the correct column. These questions would not have been something my scholars can think of on their own.

As you can see, neither one of these ideas are difficult to implement. They just require restructuring some of our favorite anchor charts just a bit to help involve the scholars a bit more.