Classroom routines

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Routines in the classrooms are very important for children’s development. They help children to feel safe, comfortable and confident in the school environment but also to be organised and be independent. Research shows that children with regular routines have self-regulation skills, the building blocks of good mental health.

Routines should be clear and consistent. Creating and maintaining routines can also help us, teachers, manage the classroom.

3 things are essential for the ‘recipe’ to succeed!

  1. To integrate the routines into the daily schedule
  2. To stick to the routines,

          and, most importantly,

  1. To make routines enjoyable, in the form of e.g. games

I tried to encapsulate my experience with classroom routines and management in the following videos. These ideas helped me not only to ‘survive’ in the kindergarten, but also to make my life and the adorable cuties’ life easier and more pleasant. These ideas also work well with 1st, 2nd  and – why not? – 3rd graders.

You will find instructions on routines and classroom management (and other useful ones, I hope!) in the Tips section (Tip No5, Parts 1-7 is for classroom management).

Have a look here: 

TIPS

The very Hungry Caterpillar puppet

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This epic, timeless, much-loved favourite book for so many of us, illustrated and written by Eric Carle (first published in 1969) lends itself to soooo many enjoyable activities that I can’t honestly say if the students enjoy it more than teachers! In fact, there are so many that it is hard to pick just a few!

The ones I like the most, though, are the puppets which you can make and use to bring the story to life along with the students!

There are so many variations of it. Over the years in order to make the Very Hungry Caterpillar we’ve used  pom poms / paper chains / egg cartons / craft sticks (popsicle sticks) / bamboo skewers / construction paper for finger puppets

and

plasticine / self drying modelling clay / construction paper and a hole punch for the food.

This year in order to convey the undulating wave motion of a caterpillar I thought about doing it in the accordion-folded shape out of two even strips of green paper (preferably two shades of green).

This is how you do it: take the two strips and position them in a 90° angle. Glue the connecting papers together. Fold the bottom strip over the top and crease the fold along the edge. This will make the accordion fold tight! Continue this process until all the paper has been folded.

Then use red paper for the head, yellow and green for the eyes and a piece of pipe cleaner for the antennas. Finally, use a hot glue gun to add 2 chopsticks at the front and bottom of the accordion among the creases.

The caterpillars (two, one smaller and one bigger, since it will gobble up all that food!) will stretch and fold like real ones!

Now, your own Very Hungry Caterpillar is ready to give you and your students countless opportunities for fun and learning!

 

Here’s how my little students played with the caterpillar (and produced small parts of the story!!!)