You Will Need A System For Everything

I've never taught in the primary grades before, yet here I am in Grade 2.

I volunteered in a Grade 2/3 class last year and thought I was ready for this age group but boy, was I wrong.

I've got kids who can't tie their shoes and need a lesson on how to put papers in a duo tang. Coming from my Grade 6, 7, 8 background, Grade 2 has been a completely different world.

If you do not have routines, you will die.

If you've read Harry and Rosemary Wong's The First Days of School you will have heard already about the importance of routines. Let me just say again, they are crucial.

Things I've implemented routines for so far:

• morning work (they do spelling or word work while I come around and check agendas and collect money)
• sharpening pencils (I do all the sharpening in my class and the pencils are communal, more work for me but saves a lot of time and excuses)
• lining up (I literally had kids do a slo-mo domino fall in line during the first week of school because I had turned my attention for two seconds, now I make them line up shoulder to shoulder and then do a jump turn to face the front of the line, they like the challenge plus they are all perfectly spaced so no accidents)
• sitting at the carpet (some kids get stools, some get rugs, some get cushions, they're on a rotation schedule)
• listening from their desks (some of the kids need to turn their chairs around to face the front)
• who gets the special chair when it's time for read-to-self

Things I may need routines for yet:

• passing things out
• collecting things in
• who turns off the lights
• who to ask if you need help tying shoes
• clean up crew

You need to head into the year with some clear ideas about routines that you want to implement. Once you have the crucial ones you can always build from there. Other teachers in your school are bound to have good ideas. You can always go to the teacher(s) who had them last year and see what the kids are used to. At the end of the day, you need something that will make your life easier, not harder. You will have more work as the kids first learn their routines, but after that, the way will be much smoother.

Lesson Learned. Second Grade.