Routines

My teacher has established a really good routine for managing all of the materials that students use on a daily basis. When the students walk in the door, they show the teacher their backpack and turn anything in, they go put their chair down and, if there are any papers that need to be taken home, the teacher has already put one on each student's chair to put in their backpack right away. They keep their backpack on their chair and go get things from their cubby (name card, pencil, crayon, and calendar) and start right into the morning routine of coloring the day on the calendar (in a pattern, of course, there has to be a purpose for everything right?!). I've noticed that this routine cuts down on transition times (they don't have to walk back and forth from cubbies to backpacks to desks), and helps students develop the skills to manage their own materials so that the teacher has time to manage the bigger things.