"Routines are the backbone of daily classroom life. They facilitate teaching and learning…. Routines don’t just make your life easier, they save valuable classroom time. And what’s most important, efficient routines make it easier for students to learn and achieve more."
—Learning to Teach…not just for beginners by Linda Shalaway
When routines and procedures are carefully taught, modeled, and established in the classroom, children know what’s expected of them and how to do certain things on their own. Having these predictable patterns in place allows teachers to spend more time in meaningful instruction.
Go inside 16 classrooms from across the country to see how other teachers have successfully established routines to manage important times of the school day. Each of the slideshows below takes you on a visual and audio tour explaining how to establish similar procedures in your classroom
As children start trickling into the classroom, they need to know exactly what to do. What should they do with their homework? Where should they put their book bags? Where do their coats and other materials belong? What should they do while they wait for the rest of the class to arrive? When does class actually start? When kids know the answers to these questions, they can move smoothly through the morning routine and get straight into learning.  |
After the bustle of putting away book bags, coats, and homework, taking attendance and discussing the schedule can help bring students together and build community in the classroom.
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Students move through many activities during the course of a typical day, from whole-group lessons to small-group work, from reading time to math time, from in-class work to specials outside the classroom. It’s important to plan for these in-between times just as carefully as you plan your lessons. With predictable routines in place, students can move smoothly from one activity to the next without losing learning time. The teachers in this section share some clever ideas for signaling transition times and keeping track of students as they leave the classroom for various reasons during the day. |
Just as a morning routine helps set the tone for the rest of the day, an end-of-the-day routine helps get children and the classroom ready for the next day. You may want to enlist some children’s help in tidying up the classroom while others gather their belongings, including homework.
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