Creating Daily Routines to Eliminate Downtime and Increase Productivity

Imagine telling your students to sit down at the table for math. You finally get 4 students seated, but then you turn your back for two seconds to grab the materials for your lesson, and in the mean time, two kids pop up and run back to their preferred activities. Scenarios like these make me want to pull my hair out...I hate down time...my students struggle with it, which makes my life as a teacher so much harder. So one way I have found to eliminate as much downtime as possible (beside packing my day full of activities) is to create routines in every part of my day. This way, students know what is expected and can independently get going with an activity even when I have to run and grab some materials, deal with a challenging behavior, etc. It makes my students (and me) more productive! In today's post, I want to share some helpful tips and activities I have found to reduce downtime in the classroom.

Expected vs. Unexpected: Behaviors in School Adapted Book

If you are a long time follower of my blog, you probably know already that I am a huge fan of adapted books (see additional links at the bottom of the page for more blog posts on this topic).

They just seem to be one of the best ways I have found to engage students in literacy and aid in their comprehension of the text. In addition, I find them helpful for teaching social skills for those students that a typical "social story" doesn't quite work for.  I like them because they allow for additional opportunities to practice identifying a skill.