A Few of Our Rituals, Routines, and Expectations

Classrooms with impeccable rituals and routines maximize student learning time, offer clean transitions between activities, and seem, at least from an observer's perspective, like they run themselves.  The operating guidelines happen with purpose, planning, and precision in implementation on the part of the teacher.  Some of the guidelines are seemingly small, but when collectively implemented, make all the difference. 

A few of Miss Russell and Mrs. Shall's Rituals, Routines, and Expectations...

Daily Schedule
We have 180 days of learning possibilities; Each day and each moment must be maximized.  In our classrooms, we avoid transition and down time with a very structured daily schedule, and we stick to teaching times to give each subject adequate time.  Oftentimes, when you enter our room, you will see a clock under the document camera showing how much time is left for the task. Originally, the tool was set up for us, but we quickly realized that the students enjoyed knowing the time of the activity, too. Our daily schedule is the most essential component in running our classroom. Without it, the students would lose precious learning time.

Our Entry Routine

When students enter our room, the daily expectations are evident via a word document that is projected on our whiteboard. The students follow the detailed directions and begin quietly working on the day's entry tasks. Relaxing music plays in the background and it makes for a calm start for our classes.  The routine usually takes about 10 minutes.

Sample Message

Good Morning SOLAR Stars! We hope you have a magnificent day.

1)   Take out your planner and red homework folder, and put your book bag in your cubby.

2)   Leave your yellow math homework sheet on your desk to be stamped.
3)   Write today's message in your planner. (It is handwritten on the board each day.)
4)   Get your clicker and put it on your name tag.

5)   Complete your D.O.S.S. (Daily Oral Social Studies)

6)   Complete your yellow math Exit Ticket and put it in your classroom bin.
7)   Read a plant book from the Life Science bin.

Valuable Patrol Duties
There are daily teacher managerial tasks like putting down chairs and putting seat pockets on chairs, stamping the nightly completed math homework, flipping the daily schedule, putting out trash cans, replentishing student supplies including pencils, and monitoring students, that can easily be done by a willing patrol. However, until patrols get into a routine, they could need a reminder.  Inside one of our cabinets is a morning and afternoon patrol duty list which lists tasks in priority order. This easy to read reminder values the patrols time and gives us some much needed daily assistance.

Student Desks and Materials

We have 36 desks, and due to our departmentalized situation, 72 students. Each desk is shared by two students, one that has the work station in the morning and one in the afternoon. All

morning students have their name tags taped down on the left hand side of the desk and the afternoon students' names are on the right side of the desk. On their name plate is a number line and 200's chart, too.

Inside the desk, there is a shared Social Studies and Science book, and one pencil box. There is also a shared plastic folder that contains extra notebook paper. Then, the morning and afternoon students have their own plastic folders which contain their math work  and science work along with a journal from each subject. Every thing per subject is color-coded from the student's folders to the color paper we print their tasks on. Math is yellow, Science is green, and Social Studies is blue. The red folders are homework folders. This visual clue allows students to put their materials and work in the correct folders.

The shared pencil box contains two sharpened pencils, a hand held pencil sharpener, an eraser, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, a red pen, a box of crayons, an EXPO marker, and a sock eraser. The students are taught to be good desk citizens and to be respectful of the shared items. Desk partners often leave their partners notes thanking them for being a good desk citizen, and write an "I" message if something isn't going according to plan.  For example I stumbled upon two sticky notes this week. One said, "Chase, thank you so much for cleaning out our pencil

box. It was getting too full with pencils and extra glue sticks. Thanks, Lily."  Another one said, "Joe, I've noticed that our desk is messy. I don't like it like this. Can we work to together to make sure all our stuff is on our side of the desk?"  This type of communication came after we had a class meeting to discuss how to address the situations that may arise.

We trust students to independently keep the materials stocked in their desk. If a pencil lead breaks, they can either sharpen it at their seat or simply go to the green drawers next to the sink to retrieve another. They pull out the top drawer, place the dull pencil in the back basket, and take a new sharpened pencil from the front basket. If their glue stick runs out, they throw it away and get a new glue stick from the green drawer. As supplies run low in the green drawers, the

partrol restocks from the labeled materials in the teacher cabinets. The system is self-directed and prevents unneeded distruptions to the teacher during class time. 

In addition, there is a chair pocket on the back of each chair. There is a shared whiteboard used for daily Math Skills Block, each students' account book, and a chapter book.

Student Numbers

This system of numbering students works beautifully whether you have one class of 18 kids or four of 72 kids! Simply alphabitize your students and then assign them a number. The kids in my homeroom have a number S-1 through S-19. The kids in Miss Russell's homeroom are numbered R-1 to R-18. They write their number beside their name on assignments, then when they pass in their work, we have the "teacher assistant" (a student), put the papers in order by number. When we grade, it makes it easier to put the grades in the computer, because all the papers are in order.

We also use student numbers for lining up. Students always line up in number order and have a designated landmark spot in the room. There isn't any running or shoving to line up because of the designated spots. This handy little tactic works like magic for fire drills and for students lining up for recess. It's easy for missing students to be identified by the other students because of the line order. It sounds simple and can be overlooked as one of the most valuable organizational strategies, but you really should give it a try. I think, you'll love it as much as we do.

Passing Out Materials / Group Work Numbers
Passing out materials for 36 students could consume valuable learning time but a few cheap trays from Dollar Tree and an organized system makes the distribution of materials easy.  

Over each table group, we have a star hanging with the table number. In most circumstances, there are four students that make up a table group. Each student has a colored dot on their name tag which represents their job in the group. The jobs include materials gatherer, materials returner, table leader, and procedure expert. The materials gatherer immediately goes to retreive the tray which has been set up with materials by the teacher, patrol, or teacher's assistant in the morning.  If we are playing a math game during the day, the playing cards, discard sheet, and game directions are set up on the trays in the morning. if we are doing a science lab, then those materials are set up in the morning. The materials are just as easily returned.  Also, hand lenses are always availble on the trays. The system really runs smoothly. I'll bet if you give it a try, you will love it as much as we do.

Table Trash Bins
How many times have you walked around the room collecting trash as students cut out and assemble something?  In 3rd Math Investigations, for instance, students have to assemble 1,000 charts by cutting out 10 one hundred charts; They have to create array card sets; They cut out brownie pieces. We  place a small baset on the table group trays so as kids cut out their items, they can easily throw away their trash as they go. When the individual trash bins begin to fill, the teacher or teacher assistant can make one sweep and dump the individual trash cans. It works like a charm.

Board Configuration
The daily learning tasks in our classroom are always visible. On the right hand side of our board, we used colored masking tape to tape off the board in sections. The board has a place for us to record the date, planner message, and Math, Science, and Social Studies Essential Questions. In addition, we have a section to record the unit number and title of the day's math lesson. We have the page number listed of the task, the must do problem, and what to do when you finish the math task. In addition, we list our small group names, and have a section taped off for listing Closing session students who will share.


This simple system gives clarity to our daily agenda and is a valuable reference tool for students. The must do task may be a Student Sheet page number or simple a problem from that page. The must do is the part of the math lesson that all students must complete because it will be the topic/problem of the day's Closing session. Then, the students can move beyond the must do to the other page numbers/problems that are listed. Some students work more quickly than others. They don't need to ask the teacher what to do next, they simple look at the board configuration to move to the Extention task.

During Work Session, the teacher selects students who will share in Closing. The student writes their name under the Closing Session in the location (1, 2, or 3) where the teacher directs them. Students never have to wonder whether to bring their work to Closing, because the names of those selected to share are listed on the board.

Math Journals and Exit Tickets

As part of Math Investigations, we receive the paperback student workbooks. The pages are

excellent, but often students don't have enough room to write an equation, make an estimate, solve, and check their work by solving with a second strategy. Therefore, we set up math journals in composition notebooks for extra room for student work. The first ten pages are set aside for the student's table of contents and the rest of the comp book pages are numbered so students can always find their work quickly. Many times, we have students complete their work in the math journal.

Additionally, we use the Exit Tickets regularly. Many times each week, we give an Exit Ticket problem on a half or quarter sheet of yellow paper. The student completes the task, turns it in to their homeroom bin, and the teachers can quickly assess the students level of understanding on a given problem. The teachers then use the information to prescribe small group and individual instruction based off the Exit Ticket results. Exit tickets are then glued in the students math journal and added to their Table of Contents for later access.

Whiteboard Rituals and Routines

Daily, students use individual whiteboards during our Everyday Calendar Math Skills Block. Students retrieve their whiteboard from their chair pocket, and Expo marker and sock eraser from their pencil box. They join us in the carpeted gathering area with their materials in hand ready for learning. The teacher asks a question and the students record the answer. The teacher then says, "Boards up in 5-4-3-2-and 1."  Students during the count down place their lids on their marker and turn the board, on #1,  to the teacher. The teacher gets to scan the boards for answers. It's easy for the teacher to pick a board from the crowd that has the correct answer to show as a model. The teacher can also easily see if a particular student doesn't understand the concept. The teacher then discusses the problem and says, "Erase." Students quickly erase and get ready for the next question. The process continues at a very fast pace.

In our co-teaching setting, it doesn't take both of us to lead this session. Therefore, while one leads, the other teacher pulls a small group to the table. The group listens to the questions from the lead teacher, but the small group teacher gets to pay particular attention to the small groups responses. She can ask probing questions if a student gets stuck or give more instruction to the group if they need additional assistance. This provides a great opportunity for individualized instruction.

When the 15 minute Skills Block is done, the teacher says, "Erase and please stand."  Students quickly get up return their items to their seat pocket and pencil box.

There are a thousand other small things that make our classroom tick from our daily differentiated instruction, to our Tuesday folders, to Clicker routines, to daily organized file hangers for handouts, to bins by science content.  However, if I ever want to get this blog post done, I have to publish it now.  As I capture other components, I'll make sure to post them. I'd love for you to leave a comment about your most essential Rituals, Routines, and Expectations. Together, we can all run more efficient classrooms.