Get Help with Classroom Helpers!

Charity Preston Feb 05 Guest Blogs

Hi, Organized Classroom Blog Readers! I'm Linda Nelson from Primary Inspiration, and I'm thrilled to be here with you today! I'd like to share a simple way to handle classroom jobs.

Jobs are a great way of building your students' sense of responsibility and community, as well as of course keeping your classroom running smoothly. But assigning new jobs each week steals a few minutes of precious teaching time, and these days, who has any minutes to spare?

Have you thought about saving some time by implementing a Helper of the Day system? One of your students will handle all of the classroom jobs for an entire day. Whether you're needing a message to be delivered to the office or a plant to be watered, your Helper of the Day will do it!

Just print a double-spaced class list, print the arrows in the download at the end of this post, add magnets, and use them as you see here to show who the helper is each day. You'll find that a small display like this one will also take a lot less wall space than those big helper sets that you get at the teacher supply stores!

If your Top Dog needs a little help with a job, the next person on the list is the automatic helper. There's no time spent choosing a friend from a sea of waving hands, and no hurt feelings, either!

If a student is absent or arrives at school late, the job moves down to the next person on the list. The absent child's name will come up again soon, and besides - what an incentive to get to school on time!

Parents have often told me that being the Top Banana is a highlight for their child. Some children even mark their special day on a calendar at home weeks ahead of time!

You might want to come up with a fun title for your helper, like Top Dog or Top Banana. If you have a classroom theme, it might be fun to coordinate the title. Cowboy theme? How about Head Ranch Hand? Football Theme? Star Quarterback or MVP! Space Theme? Mission Commander!

Whatever you decide to call your helper of the day, you'll find this easy-to-implement system to be a good timesaver... and I'll bet you'll have no trouble finding a way to use those extra minutes!

Here are a few arrows for your chart that you might like to download from Google Drive.