When I teach my students the routines of the classroom, I have a list of procedures to follow and explicit instructions on how to teach them. I’ve been reflecting on my own routines and analyzing how I can tweak them to help be attain my goals.
I have several goals that I’m working towards and I thought I would share how I’m creating routines to guide me closer to my goals.
Home Goal
Keep my house presentable 90% of the time.
Luckily for me I’m married to a tidy, organized man. He takes great joy in organizing everything – the pantry, garage, linen closet… Poor guy, he married me. While I like living in a neat home, I still can’t believe that I have to help make that happen!
In working towards my goal, I’ve realized that this is never-ending. It’s not like I can attain this goal and start another. It needs to be redone, over and over and over.
I have two main problem areas. The most visible is the kitchen and dishes.
If my goal is to have the kitchen presentable 90% of the time, then I’m stuck with doing dishes most days. This was an extremely sad realization for me. I don’t think I shed a tear, but I was close.
You might be wondering what my tidy, organized husband is doing, and why isn’t he doing the dishes. Good question. He takes care of a bunch of other jobs that I also dislike doing like paying the bills, talking to everyone on the phone and doing repairs. He will often come into the kitchen while I’m cooking and tidy up for me. If I request some help with the dishes, I usually get it.
The procedure that I have started to follow is doing the dishes every evening after dinner. It’s not hard, it’s not time consuming, it’s rewarding to have it done, it’s still something that I hate doing.
But….. having the dishes done and the kitchen tidy is so nice, so very nice.
The second problem area is my clothes. I dump my clothes at the end of the day instead of taking care of them.
I have a tendency to wear my clothes more than one time before washing. This makes it tricky as I don’t just place everything into the laundry basket. In fact, I’m quite good at putting everything that’s actually dirty into the basket.
The problem is what to do with my slightly worn clothing. Ideally, I put them on a hanger, mist them with water and hang them on my shower curtain rod. When they are dry, I hang them back in the closet. This procedure works well for my work clothes as I change out of them right when I get home from work.
The problem is with my sweats. I often end up with a large wrinkled pile of them… I hate wearing wrinkled clothes.
The procedure that I’m starting is to treat my sweats just like my work clothes.
I can address this problem in a few different ways: I can do it as part of my getting ready for bed routine or I can do it earlier and get into my jammies before we start to watch TV. I haven’t decided which way is best just yet. Maybe if I had nicer jammies, I would be more willing to just get into them.
I find that when things at home are in order it helps my focus when I’m at work. These two easy tasks will allow me to be a better teacher and it will keep my tidy, organized husband even happier.
School Goal
Keep my class presentable 90% of the time.
This goal is different for me since I don’t have the tidy, organized husband to influence my decision-making process.
I also don’t have an amazing backdrop to work with. My classroom has a ton of blue & pink surfaces left over from the early 1990s. Then I’ve added in chalkboards with the dark green finish. While my classroom is totally useable and comfortable, it’s certainly not ready for a Pinterest makeover.
I have three main problem areas. The most visible is my workspace.
I’m so eager to get to the next project that I don’t finish with what I’ve been using. I assess my students and keep the assessment pages in a pile rather than putting them away in my assessment binder. I have a little pile of work that students need to finish. And a little pile of interesting articles my coworkers have given me. Soon my little piles cover my work table – a table that should be free of clutter for student use.
The procedure that I have started to follow is to make sure my supplies are put away every day. I have been spending the last 15 minutes of my day taking care of it. Most of these items have a home, I just need to get them into it. I use the timer on my phone to keep me on track. Somedays it’s only 5 minutes but it’s always set aside just for clean-up.
The second problem area is all of the supplies that I will be using soon – the next unit to teach or game to introduce.
I’ve started putting my soon-to-be-used supplies into a bin as I collect them. Having them all in one place keeps me focused on how many things I’m planning on using to teach the new topic. Don’t we all have a million supplies for some topics and next to nothing for others? By using the bin, I can easily see if I have a good selection.
The bin also keeps my workspace looking tidy. When I’m ready to use these items, they come out of the bin and into my teaching space. Then the next items can start filling the bin.
My last problem is too much stuff.
I have been brutally taking stock of what supplies I actually use and getting rid of what I don’t need or use. Some of it is recycled and some of it is given away.
If you have too many supplies for a given topic, find them a new home. You do need a variety of activities with little learners, but do you really need seven books on the topic, five hands-on activities, three games and four art activities? You might, but if you don’t use them all or you keep searching Pinterest for something better, then maybe it’s time to let go.
My procedure for too much stuff, is to take a few minutes as I’m planning a unit to evaluate my supplies. Things I don’t plan on using can be given to another teacher, donated, recycled or trashed.
You may notice that I’ve said nothing about student supplies or toys. I already have procedures in place for those items. I’m pretty good at overall organizing and teaching the students how to take care of class materials. The problem is me – do you see the theme?
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