Every teacher has a lot of balls to juggle, from trying to keep the classroom quiet and neat, to teaching, getting worksheets, marking assignments, and the list goes on. This can be very stressful.
My Grade 4 teacher found a way to make life easier for herself. She assigned specific jobs to each of us in the class such as class captain, stationary manager, blackboard manager. This was her own teaching hack which she used to efficiently manage her class, make the children and guess what, it actually worked.
There are many hacks for teachers to use in the classroom to make life easier for them.
Here are some of these useful hacks:
- Get free printable worksheets
One way to reduce your workload as a teacher is for you to have ready-made activity sheets and worksheets. There are several websites that offer these printable worksheets for FREE. Click here to see a list of websites that offer these FREE printable worksheets.
2. Use a visible timer to minimize delays
You might have planned how your day will go only for it to be delayed by children taking a lot of time completing their classwork. In order to encourage your students to work in a timely manner when performing a given task or classwork, set up a visible countdown timer in front of the class. This will encourage them to work towards deadlines and make them time focused; a valuable skill when they become adults.
3. Reducing noise in the classroom
Its only normal when you have a number of kids to also have a lot of noise. However, there are some ways to grab their attention and get them to keep quiet. It could be a special type of clap whereby the students respond by clapping back or setting up a doorbell in the classroom which you ring whenever they are making a noise. It should be noise-o-meter using different coloured lights or buzzers to get their attention and get them to respond accordingly
4. Assign jobs to kids
Kids need to have responsibilities. You can make your job easier by assigning various roles to children in your class. Some of these roles include library helper to keep the classroom library organized, cleanliness manager to ensure the class is clean, whiteboard manager, pencil sharpener, someone to write the names of noise makers etc. Children love these responsibilities and it helps the teacher focus on other tasks,
5. Turn cleaning into a game
Do you want a squeaky-clean class without much stress? You can make a game of cleaning up by giving each student a wet wipe and having them wipe their chairs, tables and shelves. You can then give a small prize/star or badge to the child with the dirtiest wipe.
6. Extra worksheet for Quick Finishers
Every teacher has a child that finishes his work in class and them goes ahead to disturb others. A good hack is to always have extra worksheets and activities for children like this in your class. Also, worksheets can be used as starter activity at the start of a lesson to recap past lesson and prepare for the new topic.
Here’s one more hack. How can you drive energy levels in your class and keep them engaged? One word – GAMES. When children play games in group competing against each other, there is high energy in the room, a lot of engagement and exactment. It also promotes collaboration.
9ijakids app has over 200 games across various subjects – Maths, English, Science, History, etc. They are perfect for engaging the kids either as a pre lesson activity or post lesion topic revision.
What are you waiting for? Give it a test run.
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