Guest Blogger- Teacher Timesavers from Crystal!

As I mentioned, March is a super busy month! While I'm at parent-teacher conferences today, my friend Crystal is filling in to share some of her favorite teaching timesavers- because, really, is there anything we can use more?

Hi there! It's me, Crystal, from Teaching Little Miracles. I'm so happy to be here! It is such a privilege to guest blog for Jenny today. I enjoy reading all her organization tips (did you catch Sunday's post on organization for progress monitoring?) and other great ideas!

I'm excited to share some of my favorite time savers with you all today. I know this time of year, I'm always looking for ways to stay organized and save time. Here's some of my most terrific timesavers:

1. Morning Routine Posters!

This was one of those things I figured out after my first year of teaching--and yes, it took me a year (maybe two). Every morning I would write a list on the board of things for the kids to do when they came in and it was usually very similar. I realized it was silly to write it every day when I could turn it into posters. I printed mine on cardstock, laminated them, and put magnets on the back. Such a time saver in the morning! This is a freebie in our TPT store if you're interested. You'll notice in the picture that my posters are now part of my Daily 5 slide show that I project on the board each morning, but I still pull out the posters sometimes too.

2. Weekly Checklist!

This one also took some time to develop. My blogging buddy Kristi is a list maker and we both struggled to leave school at a decent time every day. We found that we would start working on something, then as we walked across our room to take care of it, we would get distracted and start on something else... I'm sure you can see where this is going. WASTED TIME! Finally, we came up with this handy checklist. It has my list of things that I need to do each day (Friday is on the back) tucked inside a page protector. As I accomplish something, I cross it off my list. It keeps me focused and best of all, each week I just erase and use the list again.

3. Picking Prizes!

I use Dojo points in my classroom. At the end of the week, students pick a reward based on how many points they earned. I found it was taking too long for me to ask each student what they had chosen, so (using those handy page protectors again) I created a way for them to sign up themselves. While you may not use Dojo, maybe this will give you an idea on how to save yourself time in your classroom.

I guess I will stop with just THREE terrific timesavers because this post is getting way too long! Now...make sure you come visit our blog. We happen to have a $75 WiseDecor giveaway happening right now!

  

Have a blessed week! Thanks again, Jenny!  

I am so glad Crystal could send in a guest post for today! She and her blogging partner have tons of simple, smart ideas for your classroom- like using I Have, Who Has cards to play Scoot easily- plus a motivating Wisdom for Wednesday post each week! Be sure to check out her blog :) Thanks, Crystal!