Successful Classroom Systems for an Organized Classroom

Hi there! Shyra here from Junior High Core Values  A lot of times, we assume that routines and procedures are taught and mastered in the younger grades, but that’s not always the case. I always tell my sixth grade parents at Back to School Night that sixth grade is like “Kindergarten, the Sequel”.

Consistency and repetition are incredibly important at the beginning of the year in order to have a successful classroom system. Here are some systems that I use in my sixth grade classroom to make sure that we are maximizing every moment of learning time. 

Build a Classroom Community

A lot of this depends on how much freedom you have at your school site. However, it can be done. In my classroom we use three classroom norms: Attentive Listening, Mutual Respect, and the Right to Participate/Pass  Depending on the class, I may leave off that “pass” part. Throughout the year we participate in several team building activities to foster a sense of trust and community in the classroom. Since time is always in short supply, I try to bridge these in to whatever curriculum we are focusing on in the moment.

Stick to Routines.

It might sound boring, but for the most part, my students know exactly what to expect from the moment we enter the school building to the time that instruction begins.   Our end of day procedure is also the same from day to day. 

Nonverbal Cues

Nonverbal cues are the icing on my cupcake, the ice in my iced tea, and the chocolate to my difficult day.  My students use signs for asking a question, sharing a comment, asking for the bathroom, showing sympathy/agreement, and giving support. I, in turn, use signs for silence, for getting in line, for transitioning, for sitting, and for waiting. Establishing, practicing, and being consistent with classroom signs saves a LOT of time and makes the classroom run much more smoothly.

Student Buy In

One of my favorite ways of maintaining an organized classroom is to use a classroom economy. Hello, why didn't I start this at the BEGINNING of my teacher career?  Students are much more engaged and invested when they own their classroom...and it makes a lot less work for me! There are many ways to set this system up all over the internet. In fact, Mylie wrote about her system in detail just a few weeks ago.  In my classroom what works is having students apply for a job at the beginning of the trimester. They keep the same job for the entire grading period. Every student has a job, and every job has a salary that can be used for our monthly classroom auction. Now of course, there are going to be students who don't/can't remember your expectations. The way I handle that in my classroom economy is a Behavior Log. Entering your name in the behavior log (missing work, talking, not showing mutual respect, etc) is a $25 fine per infraction. The first two weeks of school this year there were over 25 entries in the log. Yikes! Last week, there were only five.   Now that's some improvement and organization! 

What are some systems you use in your classroom to make it smooth and organized? 

The Writing Process: What Students can Learn about Themselves

Student writers need to brainstorm, draft, revise, revise, revise some more, and proofread.  So how can your students keep their work organized in a way that also helps them reflect on their learning as writers?

Hello!  Marypat here from Just Add Students to introduce you to BGP.

Let's start with the problem...

I ask my students to save all graphic organizers, prewriting, drafts, and revisions for each writing assignment.  But there is usually more than one student who struggles with organization.

Papers always go missing, get stuffed into the wrong binder/folder/book/locker.  That student may end up starting a writing assignment several times -- trying to remember what had been written on the graphic organizers or in a draft.

The writing "process" was more of an exercise in starting over when students couldn't find prior work.

Then something wonderful happened...

I went to a workshop put on by my hero Nancie Atwell.  I am telling you - she is nothing short of amazing.  I learned so much from that workshop!  Here is one idea I used with great success. Something that helped all of my student writers, not just the disorganized ones.

Grab your stapler...

I had my students save, and staple, all of their work on a writing assignment together.  Most current work on top.  This was what my students referred to as the "big, gigantic pile."   The BGP.

As my students write, I collect and review all of the steps of a draft (that's how I sort and set up mini lessons for the next day).  As we work through graphic organizers, intro paragraphs, thesis builders, drafts (D1, D2), revision activities, peer reviews, proofreading and then finally the published piece, the "big, gigantic pile" grows.  Always with the most current work stapled on top.

What the student ends up with is a "big, gigantic pile" of work stapled, marked up, and dog-eared.  On the very top, they add their published piece (usually not stapled so it can easily go into their portfolio or on the wall).

And the result...

Several really great things happened when I started implementing the BGP:

1.  Work was less likely to get lost.  All the pages were kept together and kept in writing folders. 

2.  Students were impressed at how much writing they had done!  I heard students say things like, "Wow, I did a lot of work on this!" and "Look at how bad my first draft is!"  and "My ideas really changed as I worked on this!"  

Students were thinking about, reflecting on, and rejoicing in their writing!  They could see that their writing was, indeed, a process.  (Insert happy dance here!!)

3.  Student self-assessments.  Before my students turn in an assignment, I always ask that they complete a simple self-assessment.  It consists of three questions:  

• What was easy about this assignment?
• What was difficult about this assignment?
• What would you like me to know?

I ask students to flip through their stapled pile and consider what they've been working on, thinking about, struggling and succeeding with over the last few weeks.  This gives them a chance to really consider how the writing process worked for them.  Plus, it helps build goodwill that they know I care about their experience with this writing assignment.

4.  My grading got easier.  Yes.  You read that right.  Easier.  Because I reviewed each graphic organizer, thesis, intro, and draft as we worked on it, I knew what students were writing about.  I could quickly see where they were going off the tracks.  My comments gave them direction for the following writers' workshop task.

When I received the final product to assess, I could look through their "big, gigantic piles" already familiar with the topics, direction, and difficulties they had.  I could see where students worked on my suggestions and where they chose to ignore those suggestions (time for a conference!).

Usually, I had very little to write on the published text.  I'd already addressed issues in the prior drafts.  And because I always use a rubric and the students received that when the assignment was given, I could quickly assess their writing on the criteria of the rubric.

I love trees...

I do, I really do!  And I often think about how wonderful a paperless classroom would be.  However, when teaching middle school students writing, there is a HUGE payoff when they can actually see the writing process.  Specifically their own writing process from start to finish.

When I experimented with paperless writing, my students lost the ability to step back and look at their own writing process -- from where they started to where they ended up.  

Even if you give the BGP a try for one assignment, your students will benefit.  It can be used for any writing project -- in any subject.  But most importantly, it will help your students think about themselves as true writers.

Building Appropriate Relationships in the Middle School Classroom

Every school and every district is different in their desire for you to relationship-build with your students.  While some stress the importance of relationships and even provide Professional Development to teach you how to care, others will discourage relationships altogether.  Considering the recent press about the idiots that just happen to be in our profession, we do have to be cautious in the communications we make in our classrooms.  We have to be clear about our intentions, and we must know our boundaries.  

  At one district orientation for new teachers, the superintendent took the stage to warn his new teachers about a great threat among us…Facebook.  He went on to discuss how teacher’s careers could be ruined if they used this site or if any derogatory information were posted there against them, whether it was posted by the teacher or not.

At another district, I was smothered with the demand that I form relationships with ALL of my students and reach them in any way possible.  Home visits, attending every event, making calls home on a weekly basis.  This was too much.  It just scared me!  After all, when it comes to making relationships with anyone, and my need for personal space, I prefer moderation.  It can be done, but it must be learned.

Teaching at each level opens the door for different communications with your students.  Let me give you some examples… I do not given out my phone number, my home email, or my home address.  I teach kids that would not use them, even if they had them.  I have, however, built strong, professional relationships with many of my students, and have my own form of communication with each that works.

One student had gone through so many life struggles.  Too much for a 12 year old.  And, despite my demanding style with my classes, and often harsh criticism of my students to get their attention for learning, it is I that she chose as her “go to” person.  We wrote notes.  School policy is to take notes away, read them, and then pass them onto the administration, but for me, it was far more effective to write on them and pass them back.  With this particular student, it started with an attitude marching into my room on test day.  She wasn’t ready for the test, and I wasn’t willing to post-pone it for her convenience.  She sat, the test blank in front of her, with a smirk across her face.  After 5 minutes passed, I wrote on a tiny post-it note, “You should get started.”  She wrote back that she didn’t study and wasn’t prepared for the test.  After many more post-its, and a few quiet tears that streamed down her cheeks, she picked up her test and did the best she could under the circumstances.  From that day on, through many traumatic home events, we wrote notes to get the words out and find a solution.

With students at another school, the communication and the relationships were far different.  These were all identified gifted and talented students in an advanced curriculum middle school program.  On the first day of school, I introduced myself and set up the boundaries.  Knowing the conscientious work of these students, I knew they would not be able to sleep at night if they had homework questions unanswered.  I agreed to keep my school email account open at home, up to 9 p.m. to answer questions or concerns, especially on big homework nights.  On leaving the school, I gave my new email to those I worked with most often, and made the offer to always help them on their homework if they needed it, even though I was no longer there…and, still, to this day, I receive emails from those students (and others) asking for college or career advice, and sometimes help with other life lessons.  From miles away, I can still give homework advice and they can get busy working instead of feeling frustrated. 

To me, it’s worth it.  It’s my job; I am a teacher.

However, it's important to keep clear boundaries and set them early on in the school year.  Know what your students need and know your district policies.  

Want Ideas?

Here are a few old school suggestions for building great relationships:

1. Write! Write! Write!  Write notes everywhere.  Leave comments on their assignments, send them quick emails to check on progress, and use a dry erase marker on their desks to welcome them to class.
2. Make early contact.  Email, call or use snail mail to make contact with your students (and their parents) early in the school year (or before).  If your first communications are positive, you will be a greater trust from all parties.
3. Be frequent and sincere with interest or concern.  Meet every students at the door every day. Read their faces and ask questions about their day, their extra-curricular activities, and even their personal interests.
4. Praise when it is deserved.  Do not be sappy with your praise; instead create value and appreciation for a job well done.  
5. Listen and learn.  Survey your students on a regular basis.  Use the feedback they give you about content or your teaching methods to adapt to their learning styles and interests.  

Most importantly, be there! Through consistency in your classroom behavior, your daily lessons, and your high expectations, students will learn that you care and that you will be there if they need you.  Those are the relationships you want to build in the middle school classroom!

College Pennant Activity for Back to School

We've shared this activity in the past with you, but we think it's such a great back to school activity, that we wanted to share it again! This is a fun and really easy way to create a collegiate environment in your middle school classroom. Our students loved doing this activity, and these pennants made for great classroom decor as well!

Using this College Pennant Activity (which you can download for FREE from our Teachers Pay Teachers store), we had our students design a pennant for their dream college. Then, on the back of the pennant, they had to include their dream job and three steps they could take right now to make that dream a closer reality. It was a really fun project and the kids came up with fantastic pennants for us to hang up!

That's it! A very easy, fun, creative, and engaging way to build community and hard work ethic in your classroom! We hope you enjoy using this activity with your students as much as we did :)

Setting Up a Middle School Classroom Economy

Last school year, I had very ambitious dreams about starting a classroom economy system in my room. I was desperate for a way to tie in the Personal Financial Literacy TEKS that are a part of our math standards in Texas. I was very nervous about starting one and it was a very large project to take on to ensure it fit my very own needs. I am going to give you an idea of how I set mine up so that you can easily copy for your own room. If you want to know my full-year review of the classroom economy, be sure to stay to the end.

I think the single hardest part was trying to figure out how to keep my money organized. I ended up getting this container from Dollar Tree and inserted index card dividers I already had lying around. This turned out to be perfect! I never had to guess or hunt for certain bills because they were already organized ahead of time.

This was the fun part. I let students buy things under the variable expense category using the money they had earned. If you notice, I also included restroom breaks and pencils. No more freebies! This allowed me to have students use their credit cards in emergency situations and learn about paying them off with interest. It also kept them from taking all of my pencils before they had even asked peers to borrow one. The kids took this very seriously because they wanted to spend their money on fun stuff, not pencils. For the first time in my entire career, I actually had pencils left over at the end of the year!! I had always run through around 500 by spring break before the classroom economy system!!

Fixed expenses were the not-so-fun part. And yes, I really did make my students pay rent. However, I did lower it down by a lot because the amount shown here was overly ambitious and the students were not reaching it. We changed rent to $100 after the first month equating $25 per week. This mean on months like December that were shorter, I only charged them the $25/week for however many weeks we were in school that month. If students could not pay rent, then they were required to bring their lunch into my room and clean my desks after they had eaten as a way to "work for hire" at $25/lunch break. So if a student was roughly $50 short on rent, they owned me 2 lunches as "work for hire." Almost all of my student figure out real quick to budget better and save up for rent before spending their money on the variable expenses!

The income was how students earned their money. You can tailor this to meet the needs of your classroom and what you would like the students to accomplish. The key with an economy system is to have some things that are predictable and all students can reach like being in your seat and working on the warm-up by the time the bell rings. Some are there for students to stretch themselves such as making an A on an assignment. It also needs some sort of teacher discretion where the teacher can give someone money just because they feel like it for going above and beyond on an assignment, helping a peer without being asked, etc. Teacher discretions are not meant to be given every single time, but randomly, so that students never get too complacent on their work.

Here is what the prices looked like set up in my classroom. It was very easy to see and reference for both the students and myself.

So now the part you are waiting for...how did it go? I truly felt like it was single-handedly the best idea I ever had. The students were completely committed to it till the very end. One of the major benefits was that it provided me with an easy way to give lots of positive reinforcement without much effort. My class behaviors also became almost non-existent. Students who misbehaved in other classes were angels in mine because they were so committed to working hard and earning money. I only had to send 1 student to the office the entire year (he went a lot, but he was the only one who wouldn't fully buy-in to the system). This is in stark contrast to the 5-6 I had to send the year before.

I also felt that it gave students lots of real-world application. It was common to hear "I hate paying rent! Being an adult sucks!" Many of my students come from families who are not good with budgeting themselves, so this was a new world for them. Yet, I feel confident that they gained some budgeting skills while with me this past year.

It also taught my students how to count money. So few of them are ever exposed to cash anymore since their families just use debit and credit cards, that they have no idea what to do with actual money. Teaching them how to count the bills from biggest to smallest was not an area I expected to have to teach going into this, but I was very excited to see them accomplish this by the end of the year. I may not directly tie to a standard, but at least the can handle money now.

If you are thinking about starting a classroom economy in your room this year or the next, be sure to check out my starter kit here. It has everything you need to get started and begin to tailor it to your own classroom needs. It has quickly become one of my best sellers for good reason. Have a fantastic school year!

Flexible Seating in Middle School

Hi everyone, its Julia from History from the Middle and I'm going to share with you how I do Flexible Seating in my class--YES, my middle school class!  It works!!  I'm going to share with you how I have set up my class, how I share it with my students, and some images of what it looks like in my class!

I start with flexible seating on day 1...Which was actually today!  I first label each of my seats with a table number and a seat number.  I print these out on sticker sheets and place on each desk and then I also print the seat labels on paper to make "seat cards".  These are what I actually use to randomly assign seats at the beginning of the year.

So, on day 1, I lined my students up outside my class, briefly explained that our class has flexible seating, and we would discuss what that is over the next few days, but that today they would just be randomly assigned a seat.  I started with my floor seats first and asked who wanted to sit there, and then randomly handed out the other cards for my other seats.

I have the following options in my class:  Floor seating with stadium seats and an Ikea Coffee Table, 3 low tables with Ikea Stools, 1 lower table with crate seats, multiple desks and chair and then 1 table with Ikea Rolling Chairs.  I am planning on upgrading one of my stool tables with the ALL popular Kore Wobble Stools!  They are a bit pricey, but I think my students will really enjoy having them as one of our choices!  All are part of my flexible seating with the exception of my table with my Ikea Rolling Chairs I'm using as a VIP table this year!  Here is an interesting blog post on VIP Tables!

Ikea Coffee Table with Stadium Seating (I store the seats on the shelf under the table)

Low tables with Ikea stools

Low table with crate seats

Regular desks and chairs

Table with Ikea Rolling Chairs (VIP Table)

I also have two areas in the back of my room that I open up for independent activity time.  One area is my classroom library with 4 bean bags (that I got for a GREAT deal from Craigslist!), the other is an area with some more crate seats and 2 small Ikea Tables.  

Library area with bean bags

Crate seat area with Ikea Side Tables

After day 1 of introducing, I then go into the details of how Flexible Seating will work in our class.  Click HERE to see my Power Point on Flexible Seating that I share with my students!  On the last page of the presentation, I have hyperlinked for your a Google Forms survey that I created to survey the kids on what seating style they like best!  Feel free to copy to your Google Drive and us!  Also, if you're looking for some pre made rules and posters, check these out from Buckeye Teacher!

 Each day, I switch up the seating cards before they come in so they have the opportunity to sit in a different seat.  Once I feel they are comfortable with the seats AND knowledgeable of my rules and expectations with the seats, I then allow them to freely choose.  I initially have them choose a Home Seat which will then be written on a seating chart.  They know that when there is a sub, they will sit in that Home Seat so the sub is able to follow with a seating charts.  

When I first entered the "unchartered waters" of Flexible Seating, I was worried about it not working and not being able to manage it.  I can tell you through reading many other blog posts and just seeing what worked in my own class with my students, I've seen great success!  In fact, it is has now spread to several other classrooms at my school! 

I'd love to hear from other teachers that have either tried ir or are thinking about trying it...Please share below!

How I Get My Ducks In A Row With Classroom Routines!

Ok, I'll admit it.  I love routines.  Why?  I think it's because they create stability and order.  And when you teach Middle School, that can be hard to come by.  After all, many of the students are characterized as "hormones with feet" and with their changing bodies and changing perceptions, their sense of security is definitely diminished.

So here is an opportunity for me to create a space where calm amidst the chaos can prevail.  Take, for example, my specific entering routine:

1.  I greet students at the door.

2.  Students pick up their materials.

3.  The bell rings and I play an inspiring song in the background.

4.  Students write in their planners and then begin the bell work.  (I take attendance.)

5.  I come around and initial planners and answer questions.

6.  The song ends and I announce that there are X number of minutes to complete the bell work.

7.  I come to the front of the room and welcome everyone.  Then we review the learning target and homework due date.

8.  Now we go over the bell ringer.

Believe it or not, this entire procedure takes only about 8 - 10 minutes once we get into the routine.  But you can see that for me, bell ringers are a necessary part of getting everyone in and settled.

I generally use bell ringers as an opportunity to review and practice.  If you use bell work for this too, then you might be interested in these Middle School Mentor Sentences that are all ready to go and focused on perseverance using an original text about Walt Disney.

This is 28% off today if you use code OneDay!

It takes several days to completely teach a routine like this, but I think Bell Ringers are essential to creating a classroom community.  Why?  They become part of a routine that satisfies a need for safety that comes from order.  

So, how do I do this?

A little bit at a time.

Last week, I modeled coming into the room with my own book bag and materials.  I actually pretended to be a student and even sat at a student desk.  The kids chuckled, but instead of me just explaining it, I showed it to them.  Then, the students practiced.  

They practiced the routine, you ask?  Yes!  This is how we all learn, right?  This applies to routines too!  After we have the coming in part down, then we add in planners.  Once the students can come in and write in their planners, then we add in the bell work.  One step at a time - I think I can, I think I can.  :)

Now here's my full disclosure:  I've been doing this for 22 years.  So I know how this will turn out.  Entering the class using this routine will become a habit.  So much so that when there is a new student, they confidently show it to that student - or an administrator - or anyone who asks.  They are confident because they know they can depend on it.  And in a world where change is the norm, it's nice to have a little bit of predictability in one's life.

Do you have routines in your classroom?  Join in the conversation in the comments below!