Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Classroom Jobs: Encouraging Everyone to Lend a Hand


One of the many things that I love about elementary school aged children is their desire to help! Seriously, I don't think I could make it through the week without my wee little one's helping around the classroom! 



Here is a snap shot of our job board, complete with our theme matching cupcakes and little cake pedestals! Eek! Love it!


Above each pedestal is a stikki clip (or two) that allow me to swap out my student names weekly without much hassle.  


Here are the jobs I use in my classroom from left to right: 
Lunch Boxes: these two students carry our bin of lunch boxes to and from the lunchroom
Line Leaders: pretty obvious what they do
Messenger: delivers our hot lunch order to the lunch ladies and carries any other messages for the teacher
Tech Team: responsible for charging up the iPads before we go home
Library Books: carry our return and renew bins to the library
Mailboxes: in charge of managing student mailboxes for the week
Paper Passers: again, pretty obvious
Librarian: keeps our classroom library neat and tidy
Custodian: checks student desks at the end of the day for cleanliness.  Students can earn a 'Smart Cookie' for having a clean desk and a second one for having a clean floor underneath their group on their check-in day
Morning Helpers: pass out 'Smart Cookies' for the previous day's clip-chart, puts all of the clips on green for the beginning of the day, pass out morning work

I also have a Table Manager at each of my five groups.  These students help to pass out supplies from our caddies/baskets and collect papers for the group.  

Here are two sweet little morning helpers working together to pass out morning work and 'Smart Cookies'.  I honestly don't know what I'd do without this classroom job!

If you want to read more about my Smart Cookies you can find it HERE


Here is the Tech Team hard at work charging up our iPads for another day!

My students love helping out and believe me, I GREATLY appreciate it.  Classroom jobs also help to strengthen our classroom community and help children to learn how to respect the classroom.  I'm happy to say that my students this year really take pride in having a neat and orderly room.

What kind of classroom jobs can you not imagine living without?




3 comments:

  1. I want a cupcake and cookies after reading this. I used to do classroom jobs when I taught little kids. With fifthies though...I just say..."Hey....I need this" or just point and they know what I want. It's beautimous. I guess it helps having the same kids over again. This group is on year two, but when I had a group for three years...I swear they knew what I was thinking before I did. Crazy!
    Alison
    Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin'

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  2. I love how your classroom jobs are organized and managed! I found with older ones that they were less eager to help when I had a lot of classroom jobs. So, I narrowed it down to "Helper of the Day" and had two each day: one boy and one girl. They did everything and anything I needed that day. It worked well for my upper elementary students. If I get to teach lower elementary, I'll be referring to this post! :)

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  3. I have those cupcake cutouts too! I don't do class jobs either. I just pick whoever I can trust to do the task correctly, and they never complain. Ah, the joy of middle school. :)

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