The good thing about a very chatty class is that they are social and love to talk to each other! The bad thing about a very chatty class is that they can be a bit too social.
The trick is to channel that chatter in positive, engaging ways. Here are 15 tips.
1 – Teach and practice your attention-getting signal. Whether you use a bell, a chime, a doorbell, or a raised hand – whatever your signal is, teach your students that when you use the signal, their job is to stop talking, stop moving, and look at you for further directions. Model this. Then practice, practice, practice by having them talk and be noisy until they see or hear your signal. Watch to make sure that everyone is quiet and attentive. Expect 100% compliance. Praise them when they get it “right.”
Make this a very clear expectation. This video is a great model.
2 – Another tried-and-true strategy: count down from five. (Or any other number you want to use.) A good signal is to say, “Everyone will be quiet and ready to listen when I get to one.”
3 – A great way to ask for silence and incorporate mindful breathing is to say, “If you can hear me, take a deep breath.” Do this a couple of times if needed.
4 – Simon Says works too! “If you can hear me, touch your ear. If you can hear me, touch your nose.” Make your voice progressively softer each time.
5 – Make your expectations clear about noise level expectations, such as when it is appropriate to talk and when it is not. You will also want to explain appropriate voice levels for different work times. This anchor chart is a great example.
6 – If you choose to use a warning system (such as one warning about talking before you will have to change seats), teach that explicitly as well.
It’s important to follow through and be consistent every single time. Be calm and fair. Over time, your students will see that you say what you mean and mean what you say. When they see that you will always do what you said you will do, they will (eventually) hop on board.
7 – Use a timer for “practicing” being quiet or silent at certain times. This helps build stamina for quiet work time.
9 – Sometimes, students end up talking because their friends start talking to them, and they don’t want to be rude. Talk about this and how it happens to everyone! But then talk about ways to use hand gestures to signal to your friend that you can’t talk right now.
10 – Schedule “talking time” (preferably with movement opportunities) into your lesson plans. I think of it the same way I introduce a math manipulative and allow students to “play” with it for a while before we use it for the math lesson.
11 – Incorporate engagement strategies into your lessons. These opportunities allow students to talk and give some purpose to their conversations. If you want some suggestions, download my list of engagement strategies HERE!
12 – Along with engagement strategies, keep your direct instruction lessons short and to the point. Writing down bullet points of what I need to communicate in a lesson works best for me. Aaron Burr’s advice to Alexander Hamilton – “Talk less, smile more” – from the musical “Hamilton” is worth keeping in mind.
13 – Use calming and mindfulness strategies before starting lessons, especially if a lesson comes after a transition (such as returning from specials, lunch, or recess).
14 – When you are ready to transition or give directions, stand still, smile, and state the direction.
15 – Refuse to talk over your students.
You’ll feel like you’re waiting all day, but if you continue to talk over them, they will continue to talk and ignore you.
This is tough because if you have a class that is talking non-stop, you might feel like you are wasting a lot of time waiting for them to quiet down before you speak. But, the more you continue to talk over them, the more they will continue to talk over you.
I have learned that the best way to handle this is to make it into a competition. Record the time it took for them to get quiet. Then, challenge them to beat their time the next time you ask for their attention. Give them back the time they “saved” by giving them free time to talk at the end of the lesson or the end of the day. Another option is to offer that time in the form of extra recess.
A chatty class can be channeled in a positive direction! Be calm, be consistent, talk less, and smile more. Let me know how these strategies work for you!
All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!
Talking about behavior, rules, and consequences on the first day might seem harsh.
But think about how your students are feeling. They might be nervous on the first day. They might wonder how nice you are or how strict you will be. They might wonder how or if they will fit in with their classmates.
“The word discipline is derived from the Latin root disciplina, meaning learning. It needs to be associated with positive acts and feats of learning, rather than negatively associated with punishing. Teaching discipline requires two fundamental elements: empathy and structure. Empathy helps us “know” the child, to perceive her needs, to hear what she is tryihng to say. Structure allows us to set guidelines and provide necessary limits. Effective, caring discipline requires both empathy and structure.”
Teaching your plan right away helps your students feel safe and know that you can be trusted to say what you mean and mean what you say. Being clear about what you expect is showing kindness.
It’s okay to start your first day with a couple of fun, get-acquainted activities. But after that, it’s time to begin teaching your classroom expectations and discipline plan.
Here’s how to do that.
1 – From the very first moment, set yourself and your students up for a successful year by explaining to students what behaviors you expect. The time it takes to explain, model, and review these routines is invested well because you will get that time back in having a calm, predictable, and orderly classroom.
Let your students know that respect, kindness, and learning are the ultimate goals and that rules and expectations in your classroom protect everyone’s right to learn and feel safe.
Students want to rise to high standards but must know what we expect. Even in upper elementary grades, when we might assume that they have heard these expectations every year, they still need (and deserve) to know what standards you will expect.
Rules give students the “lane lines” for the highway of your classroom, giving them a sense of security.
2 – You might start by talking about your hopes and goals for the school year and ask them to share some of their own. This could be done as a partnership, then whole group sharing/discussion, or you might have students write about their hopes and goals.
A great read-aloud to use for this discussion is Collaboration Station by Shannon Olsen.
In that context, you can then discuss classroom rules to help everyone’s hopes and goals become a reality.
As a class, develop three to five general rules that will guide how we treat each other and learn in our classroom.
Some teachers like to keep it simple by creating a one-rule classroom. Here’s an example of one rule: If what you are doing interferes with learning, hurts someone’s heart, or prevents you from being your best self, you should not be doing it.
3 – After creating the rules (or agreeing to one rule), make a chart or poster that displays the rule(s) and have everyone (teachers, instructional assistants, and students) sign the chart.
4 – Now, what should you do when your students break the rules? For one thing, expect it to happen. They will forget, they will lose self-control at times, and they might test limits.
Be ready to respond with logical consequences. Logical consequences help fix problems that result from breaking the rules. The consequence should be respectful of the child and fit the situation.
~You break it, you fix it. Students can clean up messes or do their best to repair something broken. They can write a note of apology if they have hurt feelings.
~Temporary loss of privilege helps students remember to use privileges responsibly the next time.
~”Take a break” helps students learn self-control by removing themselves (or being reminded to remove themselves) from a situation where they make poor choices, regain self-control, and rejoin the group.
5 – Some teachers like to role-play scenarios of students not following the rules and then model what they, as the teacher, will do as a consequence. You can make this funny (as you model the student part), but be quite serious as you model the teacher’s reaction.
To create these scenarios, think about some typical misbehaviors or challenges to the rules you have seen in the past.
In this article, Linsin suggests listing the five most disruptive and annoying misbehaviors you experienced last school year.
Model for your students how NOT to behave, then ask them to explain how and why this behavior is a problem for the class.
Explain what you will do in response to the behavior. When possible, make the consequences as logical and natural as possible.
Is a student talking to their tablemates and not getting work done? You will move them to a different seat where they will work alone.
Is the class talking and being rowdy as they travel through the hallways? You will have them practice hallway walking during the first two minutes of recess.
What if a student says something disrespectful to another student? Depending on the severity of what they said (some comments might require an administrator), you will have them take some time alone to calm down and reflect on what happened, and then they will write a letter of apology. In some cases, their parents/caregivers will be notified.
6 – Especially in the first days of school, continually remind your students that you will protect everyone’s right to learn and feel safe in your classroom.
7 – Now for the hard part – you must be consistent and persistent.
For example, if your policy is to give one reminder to lower voice levels during independent work time, and you have given that one reminder, you must follow through with your consequence of imposing silent independent
work time. If you don’t do what you said you would do, you are teaching your students that what you say doesn’t matter.
You will do lots of reinforcing during the first six weeks of school. When students don’t follow a procedure or expectation correctly, simply say, “That wasn’t our best. Let’s try that again.” Be brief and clear. (Remember: clear is kind.)
You don’t have to be mean, but you do need to mean what you say.
Here’s to a great year ahead!
All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!
Once upon a time, when I was student teaching, we used Madeline Hunter’s seven-step lesson plan. It has held up over time and remains a great model for direct instruction. (I found a PDF online, the same document we used at UNC-Chapel Hill back then.)
While she is known for her lesson plan format, another valuable thing I learned from Madeline Hunter was the idea of “sponge activities.” These are “learning activities that soak up precious time that would otherwise be lost.”
These activities should be quick, fun, and engaging, with a slight focus on academics but that doesn’t feel too intense. These are perfect for using bits of time for more learning!
What’s the difference between sponge activities and brain breaks? Brain breaks are short mental breaks designed to help students stay focused and attentive. They might help energize or relax students (depending on the need). Sponge activities are learning activities. They both serve a purpose.
Every teacher can come up with their own versions of great sponge activities, depending on the needs of their class and their curriculum. Here are 20 ideas to get you started!
ELA
1 – Read aloud – this will always be my first choice. Keep a stack of picture books and a chapter book read-aloud handy at all times (even if you only teach math or science or social studies).
2 – Stellar Literacy is a favorite resource of mine, and I especially love their sentence writing routine. Here’s a link to a free resource. Try it out and see what you think! This is a great way to use a few extra minutes and students love it.
3 – Make up stories with Story Cubes. These are fun to use with small groups or the whole class together. Roll a cube to get started. One student starts a story using that cube and writes for one minute (or whatever amount of time you want to use). When the timer goes off, they pass the paper to the next student, you roll another cube and the next student continues the story. Continue for as much time as you have and then read the fun results!
4 – Mad Libs. These are always fun and a great reinforcement for parts of speech.
The teacher gives clues one at a time providing appropriate wait time in between for students to think (or write down their word guesses).
Examples:
Clue 1: I’m thinking of a word on our spelling patterns list.
Clue 2: It has one syllable.
Clue 3: It is a homophone.
Clue 4: It rhymes with could.
Clue 1: I’m thinking of a word on the vocabulary list.
Clue 2: It has 5 letters.
Clue 3: It is a verb.
Clue 4: It belongs in this sentence: Mary will _______ her essay today.
Math
7 – Try some choral counting. As a class, count by twos, fives, tens, or other multiplication facts you want to review.
8 – Another choral counting option is to start with a number such as 225 and count by tens or hundreds forward or backward.
9 – Yet another choral counting option: count by fractions (fourths, for example) or decimal numbers.
10 – Play “I am the Greatest” to have fun with place value. Here’s how to do it:
The teacher needs a deck of cards or a ten-sided die.
Have students draw lines on paper or whiteboards for whatever size number you want to use. (6 lines for numbers up to hundred thousands place, for example, or 4 lines, a decimal point, and then 2 lines for numbers up to the thousands place and decimals to the hundredths place).
The teacher rolls a die or pulls card and calls out the number. Students place that number anywhere on their lines.
Continue until all blanks are filled. (The teacher plays along to ensure that the greatest possible number is being built.)
Students call out “I am the greatest!” if they have the greatest number.
There is an element of strategy to this as students try to place larger digits in the largest place value spaces. But there is the element of luck as well since they can’t predict what numbers will be drawn or rolled!
13 – Would You Rather? questions get kids up and moving. They have to choose one or the other – no fair sticking to the middle! Then randomly call on one or two students to justify their answer by explaining why they would choose that. Minds in Bloom has great suggestions for different times of the year.
17 – Play a favorite song or video from YouTube. Some possibilities include anything by Kid President, any song that teaches something in your curriculum (“Tour the States” is a favorite of my fifth graders), inspiring performances from America’s Got Talent, or Kindness 101 with Steve Hartman videos.
18 – Write a ten-word summary. Have kids work in groups to create a ten-word summary of some concept you are studying or a summary of a book or article you are reading. They can omit words like “the”, “a”, etc.
19 – If you have a few extra minutes, try going on a virtual field trip! Here’s my list.
20 – If you have enough time for students to use computers, it’s fun to play Quizlet Live with any Quizlets you have already created. Quizlet Live randomly assigns students to small group teams and they play as a team to review vocabulary terms.
I hope these sponge activities help you get started with collecting your own! Using every minute well (while having fun along the way) is the goal.
You’ve planned your first day and first week of school activities. You have made copies and collected supplies. You’re observing your students work on the activities, talking to each other, and enjoying every moment in your classroom.
Then you hear the dreaded words: “I’m finished! What do I do now?”
Welcome to the world of “fast finishers” in upper elementary grades.
The trick is to be prepared for these students by having expectations for their work quality and appropriate “go-to” activities for them to do when they are truly finished.
Here are three ways to do that.
1 – Establish the expectation of “must do – may do” activities. You might even need to be ready for this in upper elementary grades on the first day of school.
This involves making a list (on the board or on the screen or a slide) that includes what all students MUST do. This is generally the independent work assignment. Then, beside that list, you also include a list of what students MAY do when they are finished.
You will need to explain this procedure, including how to evaluate their work for being “finished” before they move on to the “may do” activities.
2 – Establish your expectations for what “finished” looks like in your class.
Here are some expectations you might set (and post on a chart):
*did you write your name?
*did you answer all of the questions (or solve all of the problems)?
*is your work and handwriting neat and easy to read?
*did you do your best?
*did you turn it in the correct place?
*did you clean up your work space and put away materials?
3 – Now for some activities. In general, I expect students to work on literacy activities during the literacy block, math activities during the math block, etc. But you can switch this up in whatever way works for you.
You can post these options on chart paper or add them to a slide for display on your board. Some of the activities require some prep to get them organized, but then you’re set to go for the year. Others require zero prep (and are best to start out with on the first days of school).
On to the fast finisher activities!
Literacy activities
1 – Free (independent) reading (always a first option). (Prep: none, other than having a classroom library)
2 – Free writing (always a first option) or writing in your journal. (Prep: provide journals for students; post writing prompts on your online platform or on a slide or chart).
Some possible writing prompts from We Are Teachers website:
Here is how I used dialogue journals in my classroom. This is always a good writing option as well.
3 – Select new books from class library (or school library, depending on your school policies). (Prep: none.)
4 – Write a letter. (Prep: provide writing paper – anything is fine – and possibly a list of suggested folks to write letters to. This could be family members and/or school personnel.)
5 – Write a thank-you note to someone (same prep as letter writing: provide writing paper and possibly a list of suggested folks to write letters to. This could be family members, school personnel, or classmates.)
6 – Write a book recommendation for the class. There are more elaborate ways to do this. But a simple way is to have a wall display of blank paper – on a bulletin board or just blank paper with a border – and keep a stash of post-it notes like these handy. Students can write the title and author of the book on the note along with anything they want to say about why they are recommending the book (why it was good, why they liked it, etc.) and include their name if a classmate wants to ask them about it. (Prep: wall display, directions, and post-it notes)
7 – Read poetry books or write your own poems! (Prep: poetry books from your school library in a crate for students to access and read; examples of different poems to write. This website is a good resource.)
8 – Read a magazine. (Prep: purchase or borrow copies of magazines your students might enjoy. Another option is to ask for donations of gently used magazines. Some popular magazines for upper elementary students include: National Geographic Kids, Ranger Rick, Time for Kids, Sports Illustrated Kids, Zoo Books, Cricket, Scholastic News, Owl Magazine).
9 – Create a Quizlet of vocabulary terms from any subject and post the links on your online platform. (Prep: creating the Quizlets and posting the links)
Math activities
10 – Practice math facts – online games or practice with flash cards (watch for my upcoming post about practicing facts with flash cards.) One of my favorite sites is Mathigon’s Multiplication by Heart, which is now part of Amplify. Here’s the link. (Prep: establishing fact practice as a routine; posting links on your online platform; creating flash cards, if you choose to use those.)
11 – Math puzzles! Here’s a good site for those. (Prep: posting links in your online platform and/or making copies of puzzles and storing them in folders for students to access.)
12 – Math games! Our North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction has some great options.
13 – Math challenge problems. Math Superstars are an oldie but goody. You can find links to each grade level’s problem sets HERE. (Prep: printing the problem sets and storing in folders for student access.)
14 – Math choice boards from Jennifer Findley. (Prep: printing and storing in folders or posting links on your online platform.)
15 – Explore Social Studies/Science websites. Here’s a link to some resources I’ve collected.
(Prep: finding the particular resources you want to use for your content subjects; posting links on your online platform.)
16 – Create a Quizlet of vocabulary terms from your subject areas and post the links on your online platform. (Prep: creating the Quizlets and posting the links.)
Other activities
17 – Finish any unfinished work! (Prep: none)
18 – Study for any upcoming tests. (Prep: teaching students what you mean by “study.” Should they read their notes? Quiz themselves on terms or topics? Review vocabulary words?)
19 – Use approved websites to read or play games. Two of my favorites are Wonderopolis and Free Rice. And don’t forget any sites your district offers. (Prep: posting links on your online platform)
20 – Work on an independent project. Some teachers call these “passion projects,” or they implement Genius Hour. Basically, this involves students working on their own research or creative project that interests them. (Prep: teaching the routines and procedures you expect.)
21 – Organize desk or binder or cubby (Prep: none! Although you might want to demonstrate how to organize these areas.)
22 – Keep a list of helping tasks for students to do for you or for the classroom. (Prep: keeping the list; training students to do the tasks themselves)
23 – Build with Knex, Legos, etc. (Prep: Purchase or borrow materials and provide a space for building and storing the supplies; teaching the routines and procedures you expect.)
I hope these ideas will help you engage your fast finishers and keep them learning!
All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!
I have over 30 years experience teaching and instructional coaching in upper elementary grades. Clearly, I love it or I would not have lasted this long!
Here are 40 of my best tips for teaching upper elementary grades.
Student Relationships
1 – Building relationships with every single student is job #1. Every day. Even the students you don’t think are very likable. (Especially those students.)
If you try, you will find something to love in every student. Spending just a few minutes talking with students (rotate different students to focus on every day), asking them about their interests, genuinely smiling at them, and seeking to find something good will pay off every single time.
Read some of my true confessions about students HERE.
2 – Greet students at the door (or near the door) as they enter your classroom. That helps you make a quick connection first thing and “take the temperature” of how the student is doing.
3 – Contact every family within the first month of school to tell them something good about their child.
4 – Ask families to tell you about their child. I have never met a family who did not welcome this opportunity. (Some prefer to verbally tell you rather than do that in writing, but here is a writing option to send home to families.
5 – The old saying “Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is 100% true.
6 – Never embarrass students in front of their peers. You will lose respect and trust from all of your students.
7 – Be consistent! If you make a deal with one student, ensure it’s a deal you’re willing to make with every student.
8 – Be willing to laugh with your students. (Obviously – not laugh AT them). But enjoying the funny things they say or the funny moments that happen in your class is part of the joy of the job.
9 – The quieter you speak, the better they listen.
10 – Share the good stuff with your students’ families. It makes such an incredible difference.
11 – Give yourself time to cool down before responding to student misbehavior. It is okay to tell a student that you are upset and will talk with them later. (That often makes them worry more than if you addressed it immediately!) Then, reflect on how you want to handle the situation, get help from a colleague if needed, and follow up with the student.
12 – The above advice works for angry parent emails too. 🙂
13 – Speaking of parent emails – communicate with parents/caregivers frequently. Tell them what students are learning, make suggestions for how they can help at home, remind them of important dates.
If you notice a change in student academic work or behavior, get in touch with the parents. Let them know that you care about their child and solicit their help and input. Keep a copy of the email or document the date and time you left a voice mail. If anyone questions why you didn’t let them know, you’ll have the necessary proof.
14 – A student’s behavior is always telling you something. Be willing to look deeper and ask qeustions to learn about what is really going on.
15 – Give every student a clean slate. Every day. Every new year.
16 – I got this advice from a veteran teacher when I was new, and it has served me well. Find a picture of yourself at the same age of your students. Ask yourself the following questions: what kind of teacher did I need in this grade? What did my teacher do that helped me? What fears did I have at this age?
17 – Try very hard to be the teacher you would want your own children to have.
18 – Continuously teach your students to be the class that you want. If you don’t want them to make unkind comments to each other, work on improving that behavior. If you want them to feel some urgency around getting their assignments done well, work on teaching them what that looks like. Saying something like, “That is not acceptable/that is not okay/we are not going to do that in OUR classroom” in a kind but firm way really helps.
Starting the Year Off Right
19 – Think about your classroom routines and procedures and plan for those before worrying about having the world’s cutest classroom. You can always start with a minimalist style and add on later. But starting the year by teaching your students what you want them to do and how you want them to do it is very important.
From the moment students enter your classroom on the first day, have an assignment for them to do, give them an assigned seat, and be kind but firm about “what we do in our classroom” and “what is not okay in our classroom.” They want you to be in charge!
20 – Gradually introduce classroom routines, rules, and procedures in the first week of school (but not all on the first day). Then spend time reviewing and practicing throughout the first six weeks of school and after every school break as needed.
21 – Speaking of rules – limit them to three or four.
22 – Any time you question yourself about what you should do, ask yourself, “What is best for the kids? What do the kids need?” Those questions will always steer you in the right direction.
Upper Elementary Teaching Tips
23 – Observe teachers you admire. Ask them first, of course, and arrange whatever coverage you’ll need. When you go to their classroom, take notes on what you see them do. Incorporate it into your style.
24 – Overplan. Always have some “sponge” activities (that sponge up the extra time) available. Reading aloud always works if you can’t think of anything else.
25 – Some lessons or activities will either go wrong or not be as effective as you wanted. That’s okay. Everyone will survive. Go back and do better tomorrow.
26 – Focus on improving only ONE thing at a time. If you’re working on a new math instructional strategy, just stick to that until you’ve got it down. Then you can switch to something else.
27 – Read to your students! Both of you will love it.
28 – TBWA – teach by walking around. Circulate, monitor, be aware of what is happening in your classroom.
30 – Get students moving and out of their seats as much as possible during lessons. Everyone needs brain breaks occasionally! I have tips for that HERE and HERE.
Taking Care of Yourself and Remaining Positive
31 – The best thing you can do for your students is to take care of yourself. Seriously. Get some exercise. Spend time with your family and friends, and spend time by yourself. Read something for you. Journal. Pray and meditate. Go to therapy. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.
32 – Avoid whiners and complainers. Find your marigold. Jennifer Gonzalez talked about this on a post on her Cult of Pedagogy blog. You can read the full post HERE.
If you plant a marigold beside most any garden vegetable, that vegetable will grow big and strong and healthy, protected and encouraged by its marigold.
Marigolds exist in our schools as well – encouraging, supporting and nurturing growing teachers on their way to maturity. If you can find at least one marigold in your school and stay close to them, you will grow. Find more than one and you will positively thrive.
33 – Keep a “happy file” of notes from students and families that make you happy. On bad days, look through your file. (I also keep a digital folder for nice emails.)
34 – Be open to change and innovation. Every year, there is a new initiative. You can hate that and complain about it or seek to learn something new from everything that comes along. You’ll be much happier if you can seek to learn.
35 – Wear comfortable shoes.
36 – Celebrate and set goals each week. Keep a journal and do some reflecting each week. Here are three reflections prompts:
Celebrate: What did I do well this week?
Analyze: What do I want to improve?
Target: What is one specific goal for next week?
38 – You don’t have to do everything. Seriously. Teachers have so much on their plates, and sometimes we hurt ourselves by adding unnecessary things.
Whenever you start to feel overwhelmed, take a step back (and a deep breath), and ask yourself what you can let go for now. Maybe you can return to that task later, but look for what you can eliminate or simplify for now.
39 – Ask your students to do as many classroom organization and clean-up tasks as possible. One of my mottos is: Never do what a student could do for you.
Try “find it and fix it.” I learned this tip from Jodi at Clutter-Free Classroom. You gamify the classroom clean-up process. Whenever you’re cleaning up (but especially at the end of the day), tell students that you’ve picked one thing that is out of place in the classroom. It could be a pencil on the floor, some paper that is out of place, a book that needs to be put away, or a chair that’s not straight. Students need to “find it and fix it.” The game ends when the room is spotless (not when the mystery item is found).
40 – Clean out your classroom every winter break and every summer break. I got this advice from my mentor teacher my first year of teaching and I have (mostly) followed that advice every year.
What is your best piece of teaching advice? I’d love to hear your ideas!
All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!
Teachers have many demands on their time. One of the most critical parts of the job is planning and preparing for teaching.
Unfortunately, sometimes that time dwindles as you work on completing all the other tasks that come up and seem more urgent.
This post will give you some quick tips for blocking out time for the necessary planning and prep while also blocking out time to complete the other required tasks.
First, we’ll use time blocking to structure your weekly to-do lists.
Time Blocking in 4 Steps
1 – To do this, start by reviewing your weekly and daily schedule and identifying the blocks of time you have to complete prep and planning work.
Here’s this might look for me. (The navy blue blocks are times when tasks could be completed.)
2 – Create a giant brain dump list of everything you need to do every week, and when I say everything, I mean every little part of the task.
For example, lesson planning for ELA involves lots of smaller parts. It might include planning your whole group lessons, choosing whole group text, prepping that text for each day’s lessons (what you will do, what your students will do, what questions you will ask), and planning the students’ independent assignment.
It might also involve planning for several different small group lessons differentiated for your students’ needs. That may also involve selecting texts, prepping that text for the day’s lessons, and planning assignments.
You will also need to list locating the texts if those are not provided for you.
Then you will need to list the assessments you will do along with time to grade the assessments and possibly upload grades to an online platform.
Whew! And that’s just one subject! This may sound tedious (and it is), but it helps identify the different tasks so that you can plan to do certain tasks at one time in your day or week and other tasks at other times.
3 – Put time estimates next to each task. If you’re not sure, err on the generous side and estimate more time than you think you will need.
4 – Indicate how often you want to do the tasks. Daily, weekly, twice a week, monthly?
Now, let’s batch those tasks and plan when to finish them.
Task Batching in 2 Steps
Task batching organizes our to-do lists by grouping similar tasks and completing them in identified time blocks.
There are many ways that task batching helps make you more productive. Every time we switch tasks, our brains have to reset, which takes time and energy. When we batch our tasks, we group tasks that have the same “cognitive load” or the same demands on our working memory.
Doing all the same types of tasks at a designated time cuts down on distractions and helps make us more efficient.
Here are some examples of cognitive load categories: creative, decision-making, logistics, and quick tasks.
Creative tasks might include lesson planning and writing (report card comments, newsletters, parent emails).
Decision-making tasks might include grading and analyzing assessments.
Logistics might include making copies, completing paperwork, and changing anchor charts on the board or wall.
Quick tasks are anything that doesn’t require brainpower and can be completed in 15 minutes or less. (These might even be good tasks to get your students to do for you or turn them over to parent volunteers or teacher assistants.)
Now – back to that giant brain dump of tasks.
1 – You’ve got your task list, time estimates, and how frequently the tasks should be completed. Now identify what kind of cognitive load the tasks need.
If it’s a creative task that requires your thoughts and full attention, put a “C” beside it.
If the task needs your focus for decision-making, put a “D” beside it.
Logistics tasks get an “L.”
Quick tasks get a “Q.”
2 – Go back to your daily/weekly schedule with the identified blocks of time to work.
Plug your creative tasks into blocks of time when you have more time (15 minutes is probably not enough) and when you have the energy to focus on them.
Decision-making tasks can be plugged into smaller chunks of time, but still need a time of day when you can focus.
The logistics tasks and quick tasks can be plugged into the remaining time. (And remember – the quick tasks might be tasks you can delegate so you won’t have to do them!)
Now let’s look at how we can structure a weekly schedule.
Weekly Schedule
This can be structured according to your best work times, but here are some principles.
*Plan your lessons earlier in the week (Monday and Tuesday), then reserve Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the logistical details related to those lesson plans (collecting resources or making copies, for example).
*Speaking of resources and copies – it’s helpful to have storage drawers for keeping all materials organized for the days when you will need them.
*Do your decision-making grading work on one day, then enter grades online on another day.
*Some teachers keep their faculty meeting days open for logistical and quick tasks.
*Consider keeping one day unscheduled so you can complete anything that was not completed on its scheduled day.
*Instead of taking time to put materials away, you might use a dishpan or crate to hold all those materials. Then spend one day’s logistical task time to return the materials.
*Check email at designated times, preferably only two times a day.
*Any time you complete all your tasks for one day, get started on the next day’s tasks! (It might not happen often, but it’s awesome when it does happen.)
*Once you have a weekly task list system that works for you, consider making a daily checklist. Then, you can check off the work as you complete it.
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