Making Routines and Schedules work for your classroom

Let’s talk all about how to make your routines and schedule work for you in your classroom. First, what are routines? A classroom routine is just a well-rehearsed response to a teacher’s directive. Second, what are schedules? A classroom schedule is a list that shows the times in the week or day at which particular subjects are taught. Let’s take your routines and schedules and make them work for you.

Are you looking for tips on engaging your students during math time? Check out this article I wrote about 10 tips for engaging students.

Routines Vs. Schedule

Author of The Classroom Management Book, Harry Wong says, “ the most successful classes are those where the teacher has a clear idea of what is expected from the student and the students know what the teacher expects from them.” Every classroom needs routines and procedures that operate like clockwork. Let me help you make your routines and schedule work for you in your classroom.

Ok, I want you to do something for me… Think about what you did yesterday. Did you wake up and brush your teeth? Hair? Make coffee? Get dressed? Drive to work? My guess is you had a schedule of how you completed tasks and they were so ingrained in your head that you just did them naturally.

Now think about your classroom. What are some of the activities in your classroom that just come naturally? Maybe you walk into your room every morning and turn on your computer and turn on your document camera. Then you go about passing out papers to students. Then you head down to the copy room to make your copies for the day. These are all routines and procedures that you are operating under.

We all need routines and schedules, even your students in your classroom. Research shows that classroom procedures and a schedule are vital for a student’s emotional and academic performance. Let’s talk about the difference between routines and schedules.

The schedule is a resource that you post on your board to show students what the day will look like. It could look like the one you see below:

Schedules are important for students so that they can know what is coming during the school day. It doesn’t matter what grade level you teach, we all need to have a schedule. When I taught second grade my students would always come in and look at our daily schedule and they would know what the day was going to entail. I always posted PE days on the schedule so students could be reminded when to bring the correct materials. We would go through our schedule every morning and I made it a routine that students could rely on. How do you make routines and your schedule work for you in your classroom?

Now, routines are the backbone of your classroom. When your students walk into your classroom, what do you want them to do? Where are they supposed to put all of their materials? If you are talking to someone, what are they supposed to do? How do they sharpen their pencils? All of these activities need a routine and they need to be practice ALOT!

Math class Routines

At the beginning of every year I think about the routines I used the previous year and I decide whether they worked, they need to be modified, or they need to be tossed. You too can make your routines and schedule work for you in your classroom. I then create a list of all of the routines I need to teach my students. I start from the very beginning of the day, right when they walk into math class.

Start Thinking about the routines you want to establish in your class before your students even step into your classroom will help you to think clearly about how you WANT your classroom to be run. Remember though that you may change some of your procedures based on your unique group of students and that’s ok.

Just like I asked you earlier about your own procedures you have, think about the procedures that your students have as well. Do they have a set of activities that come so naturally to them before they come into class? Most likely, right!

While you are creating your routines maybe think about these questions:

How do you want your students to enter the classroom?
What do you want them to do before you give directions?
How should students behave?
How do students get materials?
How do students interact during rotations?
How do you want students to interact with dismissal?

These questions may seem obvious but we need to have an answer or an idea of what we want in order to show students how they are to respond. It’s so vital to think about what you want them to do but also the reason why you want them to do something as well.

In my very first classroom, I knew I wanted students to enter the classroom and begin the morning work that I had set out on their desks. As a first-year teacher in my very first class, I didn’t explain to my students why or even how I wanted them to do this task. I remember one morning after coming in from greeting students at the door I saw all of my students crowded around a student’s desk and he was showing everyone his newest iPhone that he bought over the weekend.

Of course, I was so upset that no one was working but we also hadn’t practiced that skill enough or students would have known that they needed to come in and get to work. That student could have shared his phone during the morning meeting. However, I didn’t make this a priority because students don’t know what my expectation was.

This situation makes me cringe! I didn’t have routines and I so needed them… routines and schedule work need to be in your classroom.

It’s moments like this that we need to prepare for. Students will follow your direction if you give them clear and direct instructions. Think through every activity you want students to do and practice, practice, practice.

Creating a slide with all of your classroom procedures on it can give students a visual. They can hear you telling them what they want them to do, they can see what it looks like, and then you need to practice it. Get students to act out the procedure. Then practice it again with another group. Do this with all of your procedures.

You need to practice routines, maybe not all on the same day but over the course of the first few weeks of school, all of the procedures should be practiced over and over again. The saying, “move slowly in order to move fast,” is so true in this case. The first few weeks of school should be all about creating relationships with students and getting them to input all of your procedures.

Math Class Schedules

One of the first purchases I made as a brand new teacher was a visual schedule to post in my classroom. It doesn’t need to be fancy like the one I used but you do need to have a visual for students to see when they walk in the door.

That first year I posted my schedule and it looked beautiful, however, I never once talked about the schedule with my students. I just thought, “ they can read it, why do I need to talk about it?” Oh was this the wrong thought to have?

Students need you to share with them how the day is going to flow and how it will impact them. In my second year, I incorporated our schedule into our morning meeting. I allowed students to ask questions about what we were doing. Some days there weren’t any questions but other days they had a TON! But whether they had questions or not they felt like I involved them in the day. I explained why the schedule changed that day or what special we were attending that day. They felt like they were a part of the planning. This is so important for elementary students.

Your school might provide you with the daily schedule like the first school I was in did. Your school may allow you to create your own. Making it visual for your students and discussing it, is your job.

Students thrive more when there is a schedule in place. When children have boundaries, structure, and a predictable routine they are more likely to perform academically for you.

Why Schedules and Routines are important

There are so many reasons why incorporating schedules and routines is important for students. Here are three:

Your students flourish in an environment that has structure, boundaries, and predictability. This last year showed this in so many ways. Students were at home learning the previous year and the framework that the classroom would have provided wasn’t there. Students came into class last year with no structure and they needed to be retaught how to behave in class again. Begin the very first day by giving your students routines so they can see that they have restraints to their behaviors.
You feel less burnout! One of the biggest buzzwords I heard last year was burnout. Teachers were feeling tired, pressured, and like they were just surviving. Creating procedures and a schedule will ease some of this. Routines cant take away the staff meetings or the long list of duties you have but they will create some ease in your classroom.
Makes your life easier! When you have routines it makes lesson planning and everything you do throughout the day easier. One of the biggest things I did in my classroom is give my students jobs. I had students who organized my library, passed out papers, put graded papers in cubbies, turned on my lights (or turned them off), and so many other things. This made it so much easier for me. They felt like they were helping and in turn, I didn’t have to think about those things. If there is something that you feel is sucking your time, think about if you can have a student do it?

Examples of how to put routines together

If you are wondering, How do I put my math routines together? Then go ahead and read on…

There are three different types of routines you need to think about when setting up your classroom and they each need you to think through them differently.

What are you supposed to do?

You can totally have a classroom that works like clockwork. You just need to implement routines and schedule work in your classroom.

The first and easiest type of routine to think about is action routines. What do students need to do as they walk into class? What do they get started on when they walk into class? Where do they turn in their work? How do students line up?

These are all actions that students need to do. They are things you can practice over and over again in order to get students to do them automatically. These are the routines that you can come up with easily.

If you are struggling with how to come up with these routines check out the book, The Classroom Management Book by Harry and Rosemary Wong is a great resource. Click here to purchase (I do get a small commission if you purchase from this link)

What are students supposed to look for?

These are a little bit tricker to think through but you can still teach them easily. These are the things you want your students to notice when they are in your room. Do you have a call to action that you say that your students are to act on?

These are also your visuals on the wall. This is where your schedule comes into effect. Do you want your students to read the schedule in the morning so they know what is happening? You need to teach them that.

One of the things I always did in my room was a math wall. I posted a math problem and students were to look at it and think about it in order to be ready for our math talk at the beginning of class. This is something you have to teach your students to be good at. They won’t automatically be good at knowing how to think about or complete a math talk.

So think about all of the areas in your room that you want students to think about and have a reaction.

How do students react to different situations?

These are the routines in the classroom that make a major difference. What do you want your students to do when you’re with a small group and they have a question? How do you want them to line up? And How do you want them to walk in the hallway? How do you want them to react to alarming or strange situations?

I always lined my students up in order by number but then I had a line leader and caboose. These students would be out of order however everyone else was in order. This worked for me because I found out which students could handle standing next to one another and who couldn’t. This also helped when we arrived early for specials. Have you ever had this happen to you? At least once a month the class before me was running late and I had to keep my kids occupied while the teacher was getting the other class ready to leave.

My student’s favorite game was playing facts. It was completely silent and students knew they had to look to me to see what the problem was. I would hold up my fingers and signal the addition or subtraction sign and students would respond with their answers. I would point to the one who got it correct. We would do this until the special teacher was ready for them.

Have you thought through situations like this? These are a little bit harder to think through but they are so important.

Reasons why using more Routines and having a schedule are important for elementary students