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