I have been reflecting on my 35 years in upper elementary classrooms. A lot has changed in that time! Some things are changes for the better, such as reading instruction and a focus on social-emotional learning. But some excellent practices have taken a backseat, and it might be time to bring them back.

At the risk of sounding like I’m longing for the “good old days” and “old school” practices, here are 17 strategies that I believe are worth revisiting because they are beneficial for children.

1 – Reading aloud to students. Almost everyone can recall their elementary school years and the books their teachers read aloud to them. Now, with the focus on intense curriculum pacing and teaching all the standards, reading aloud can easily fall by the wayside.

Some resources for bringing back the beloved read-aloud:

*incorporating Jillian Heise’s #classroombookaday. See my post about that HERE.

*my list of favorite upper elementary picture books (and a free list here)

*my list of favorite upper elementary chapter books (and a free list here)

2 – Whole-group lessons, but make them interactive. With a big focus on “minilessons,” some teachers cram everything into a 15-20 minute lesson. Everyone, teachers and students alike, can feel stressed and rushed and still confused about what they are supposed to be learning.

Planning for a more interactive whole-class lesson can help with that. Focus on what you want students to know or be able to do as a result of the lesson. Plan the lesson with an “I do, we do, y’all do, you do” format. (The “y’all do is our southern way of saying “work on this task with a partner or two people and coach each other,” before moving on to independent work.)

Some resources for making whole-class lessons more interactive:

*Effective teaching strategies, regardless of curriculum

*Classroom engagement strategies for group work

*Classroom engagement strategies for content area reading

*Building valuable background knowledge to boost reading comprehension

*Upper elementary math resources

*Upper elementary science & social studies resources

One great tip is to stop talking after five minutes and allow students to process the information in some way. Some processing tips:

*review notes and add any new thinking
*write a quick summary of learning
*pair up to compare and contrast notes

3 – Bring back accountable talk! In case you are unfamiliar with this practice, here’s an explanation.

Accountable talk is a structured way to lead classroom discussions where students actively listen to and clarify each other’s thinking with evidence and reasoning from a text. It shifts the focus from teacher-led questioning to student-to-student interaction. Teachers model, give sentence starters, and reinforce expectations for respectful conversation.

Here’s a great list of sentence starters if you want to try this out!

4 – Teaching clear routines and procedures for your class. Then review and practice those routines and procedures every single time students show that they need more practice. My free course can help with this!

5 – Explicitly teaching good manners, practicing, and expecting students to exhibit what they have been taught.

Make a list of whatever particular manners matter most to you. Some of the most common include saying, “please,” “thank you,” and “excuse me.” Another popular one is not interrupting you when speaking with another adult or student.

Tell students what you expect them to say or do, when they should say or do it, and why it is important.

You can create scenarios that illustrate when these particular manners should be used, and then allow students to role-play them. But the best way to reinforce this is to expect these manners to be shown and used (prompting often).

6 – Teach handwriting, especially cursive writing.

Workbooks like this and this are helpful.

If your students have already learned cursive writing basics, you can have them practice by copying quotes from books like this one.

7 – Teach students to take notes. Model filling in graphic organizers or taking notes in content areas. This note-taking should also be done by hand as it helps reinforce the learning. It works by helping students improve active listening, focus on the content, and engage more deeply with the content.

8 – Build writing stamina and fluency by having students do some journal writing. This can be a morning work requirement or done at some other point during the school day. This does not need to be limited to ELA! Your students could also do some journal writing during math or content area time.

Here are some good writing prompts from Edutopia.

One of my favorite journaling activities is to use dialogue journals. These are helpful for both writing fluency and SEL.

9 – Incorporating music and singing. You don’t have to be a singer yourself! There are lots of fun songs and videos on YouTube that help teach or reinforce content with music. Here is one of my favorite videos that teaches some United States geography.

10 – Greet your students at the door in the mornings (or when they change classes). Greeting every student by name helps you “take the temperature” of your students and start your interactions off positively before the day or the class begins. So simple, but so many benefits.

11 – Incorporating more recess. Even if it’s just a movement break with a quick walk or jogging outside, getting up, moving, and getting some fresh air is beneficial for everyone.

12 – Being more mindful about technology. Technology makes many things more convenient. But we are all on screens way too much. Just try to be more mindful about when it’s best to use a screen and when it’s better to avoid technology. Allowing students to read on a screen once a week is fine, but it’s better to spend the other days reading actual paper books. Using Google Docs for writing is excellent, but handwriting notes, working on writing projects, or using journals is also beneficial.

13 – Incorporating some deliberate downtime or rest time. Even just a few minutes of rest time, especially after lunch and recess, allows students to make a calm transition. You can play quiet music and allow students to put their heads down or just sit quietly. This daily dose of rest will be good for both you and your students!

14 – Including more art in academic work. Creating teaching posters about a topic or illustrating concepts students learn are great ways to reinforce their understanding, allowing for another way to engage the brain.

15 – Teach resilience. Students need to learn how to push through when things get hard instead of shutting down or taking extended breaks, thus not completing assignments. (Taking short breaks when frustrated is fine, but then expecting students to get back to work.) We cannot let students just wallow in “this is hard and I don’t want to do it.”

Some ways to do this: teach students to set short-term, achievable, personalized goals; teach growth mindset; model learning from mistakes and talk about your own experiences of pushing through hard things; praise hard work and perseverance; show students how they have improved in different areas; read about or show videos of people who have persevered and succeeded.

16 – Teach students how to deal with their feelings. With all the focus on SEL (which is good), sometimes it can be tempting to dwell on identifying feelings but not show students how to process and deal with them.

17 – Incorporate “compassionate accountability.” We can listen to students and empathize with their big feelings, but we can still expect them to make things right and deal with the consequences of their behavior.

Watch for a future post about this! Subscribe so you’ll never miss a post!

Which one of these “old school” strategies do you miss?! Which one will you try first? Reply and let me know!

All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!

The second half of the school year can be exhausting. Many upper elementary teachers experience burnout and run low on energy (and patience).

What to do to combat this burnout? Here are 12 tips.

1 – Leave at a set time.

Unfortunately, your teaching work is never done. The challenge is to get the most important tasks done, then leave for the day. Your teaching work is important, but so is your energy and your health.

Choose a reasonable time to leave (which might differ on different days), get your most important tasks done, then shut it down for the day.

Want some help with developing effective and efficient before and after-school routines? Take a look at my mini-course here!

2 – Develop a morning routine for yourself

Don’t roll your eyes when you read those words! I’m not talking about getting up at 4 a.m., running five miles, meditating for 30 minutes, then drinking a kale smoothie (unless that works for you).

Everyone has a morning routine. The trick is to add habits that work for you and set you up to have the best possible day. Get some tips for that here.

3 – Develop a morning routine for your students. Starting the day off right is important for both you and your students. Make this routine work for you as much as possible.

If you like to play quiet music in the morning, do that. If you enjoy starting the day reading aloud to your students, do that. If you want to spend a few minutes with students who need to make up work or just need some extra teaching time with you, make a plan for that.

4 – Set specific times of day when you will check and respond to email. Try NOT to check email after a particular time (after 3 p.m., after you leave school for the day, after 7 p.m. – whatever time works for you).

5 – Plan your planning time. Make a (reasonable) list of what you will do during this valuable and limited time. Here are some tips for that.

6 – Find some teacher friends. Hopefully, some of these will be on your grade level team, but having friends anywhere in the building will be helpful. Teacher friends are the best for knowing exactly what you might be dealing with. They can listen, offer advice, help you solve problems, or let you vent when necessary. This job is a lot more fun with friends. (If you struggle to make friends at your school, consider changing schools. It’s that important.)

7 – Plan healthy routines for after school. These could include walking, going to the gym, meditating, praying, journaling, reading, spending time outside, spending time with favorite people or pets, enjoying a hobby, or doing yoga—whatever helps relieve stress and is enjoyable.

8 – Try to fit in some walking, deep breathing, fresh air, and hydration DURING the school day.

9 – Get enough sleep, preferably seven hours or more. Your mom was right – everything is better after you’ve had a good night of sleep.

10 – Build weekly routines for yourself. This might include certain chores, tasks, or errands that you do on certain days of the week, but try to also include some of those healthy routines from tip #7.

Plan what you (or a family member) will make for dinner each night. You might plan a day for grocery shopping, and another day for other errands. You might make a plan for your daily workouts or activity time.

Having a weekly routine also helps you see when your days might be too “full” so that you can plan what to move or reschedule.

A weekly routine/plan eases stress because it gives you some predictability and a sense of being on top of your life’s personal and family routines.

11 – Plan some fun activities for your class. This might be reading a fun picture book daily (see one of my favorite routines here), doing a project, building something, incorporating more stations or hands-on activities, incorporating some different engagement strategies, taking some of your lessons outside, or going on a field trip in real life or virtually!

12 – If you need a day off, take a day off. Yes, sub plans are a pain. But plan for a day (or two days) for your class, plan what you will do for yourself on your days off, and turn in your leave request. Do not feel guilty.

Burnout is a real thing. Recognizing when your energy is running low and taking steps to manage your energy are essential. Let me know how these tips work for you!

All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!

No matter the time of year, you can reset your upper elementary classroom environment.

Your classroom environment is the “feel” of your classroom (tense and stressed, chaotic, peaceful and pleasant), the interactions between teachers and students, and the routines and procedures (or lack thereof) that make your classroom run like clockwork.

Notice that I am not calling this classroom “management.” All we can really “manage” is our behaviors and responses to student behavior.

With that in mind, here are some ways to reset the environment in your upper elementary classroom.

1 – Watch your voice. You don’t have to be mean, but you do need to sound like you mean it. Your students will not take you seriously if you use a pleading tone. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. There’s a big difference between saying, “Sit down” or “Sit down, please” versus saying, “Could you please sit down?”

2 – Here’s the “mean what you say” part: you have to follow through on your expectations and consequences.

If you say students should raise their hands before speaking, hold them to it. Say something like, “Raise your hand first.” Then call on someone else. When the student raises their hand, immediately call on them to show them that you recognize that they are following the directions.

If you tell students homework should be turned in on Friday, follow through on whatever consequences you set for missing homework.

When students see that you mean it, they’ll start taking you seriously and following directions the first time. Consistency builds trust, and trust helps build a feeling of safety and respect.

3 – Review and practice your classroom procedures. I have a great freebie for you that lists the most important procedures and gives suggestions for practicing and reinforcing them. You can grab that freebie HERE.

4 – Here is some specific advice for typical upper elementary classroom issues and how to reset them.

If your students aren’t taking you seriously

*Make sure you are not smiling when you mean business. If they think you’re “playing,” they won’t necessarily do what you say.

*Watch for adding, “okay?” to the end of your directions OR phrasing directions as a request. There is a big difference between saying, “Can you take out your math folders?” or “Take out your math folders, okay?” and saying, “It’s time to take out your math folders” or simply “Take out your math folders.”

*Put your students on the clock. Use a 5-4-3-2-1 countdown (as in “Take out your math folders and be ready for math by the time I count down from five”) or tell students that they have one minute to take out their math folders and be ready for math and then set a timer. Setting a visual timer for students is even better.

If your students aren’t listening when you’re giving directions:

*STOP. Do not continue. You’ll just have to repeat yourself, and this will be a total waste of time.

*Stand there and say the ever-popular “I’ll wait.” Cross your arms. Do not smile. Stare at your students. Despite the popular meme of the skeleton saying, “I’ll wait,” this tactic does work well for many students. If not, try one of these other suggestions.

*Keep track of how long it takes your students to stop talking and listen to directions. You might make a tally mark on the board for every minute that passes. That time will be removed from the students in some way. Maybe it’s silent lunch for that number of minutes (never for the whole lunchtime), delaying going to recess for that number of minutes (but never taking away recess completely), or taking time away from “Fun Friday” or some other fun activity.

If your students are fooling around or having side conversations during your instruction or independent work:

*Stop what you’re doing (or stop talking). When students look at you, tell them what they’re doing, why it is disruptive or causing a problem, and what they need to do instead.

*Circulate. There’s an old saying that “a teacher on their feet is worth ten in their seat” (or something like that), and it holds. Walking around, checking in with students, making eye contact – proximity works.

*Use engagement strategies to keep your students focused and engaged.

If you focus on all the things that need to be “fixed,” you will depress yourself and your class!

Focus on one behavior to work on as a class goal. When that is mastered, choose another one. But then, in the meantime, make a list (preferably on the board where students can see it) of everything your class is doing well. Ask them to add suggestions to the list. Emphasize the positive while also working on what needs to improve.

Nothing works for every student all the time. Having a toolkit of options is essential.

Resetting your upper elementary classroom environment can be done! Let me know how these strategies work for you.

All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!

The third quarter of the year can be the best or the most challenging part of the year.

The good part: students know the routines and expectations, and there are fewer interruptions with holidays. (Although snow days are always fun, at least in the southeastern U. S.!)

The challenging part: the winter blues are a real thing for both students and teachers. And if the routines and expectations are not firmly established, student behavior can be difficult to deal with.

Is it time for a classroom management reset? If so, try one of these strategies.

First step: Change up the classroom environment.

1 – Change your seating arrangement. Separate the students who are having trouble staying focused and on task.

If necessary, “isolate” some students (assuming you have furniture and space to have them sit by themselves).

You might even arrange your seating so everyone faces the front of the classroom. It might sound “old school,” but it’s worth a try until you have your students’ complete focus and attention.

2 – Clean up your space. Orderly spaces help maintain orderly behavior. (That also sounds very old school, but it’s true!)

3 – Get rid of piles of paper. Straighten up shelves and bookshelves. Put away any resources or books that you are not currently using. Clean off your own teacher space. Designate some time for your students to clean their spaces (tables, desks, cubbies, binders, folders).

Keep your classroom as organized and orderly as possible.

4 – Review any problematic routines or procedures. If everything in your day feels problematic, focus on the worst (or most irritating) routines or procedures. When/if those improve, move on to other parts of the day that are causing problems.

If you need help teaching/reviewing procedures, here’s a link to my free course!

5 – Be consistent, insistent, and persistent. Follow through on your consequences when rules or expectations are not being followed. You don’t have to be mean, but you do need to sound like you mean it.

6 – Use timers for transitions and encourage your students to beat their best times. This helps make a game out of routine tasks.

Next step: Have a plan for every moment of the day. Planning your day is one of the best classroom management strategies.

7 – Having a plan is important, but you must be flexible. Not everything will go according to plan. Have a list of sponge activities (here’s my list) and fast finisher activities.

8 – Incorporate engagement strategies into every lesson. Here’s a list!

9 – Incorporate movement where possible. For example, you could do simple calisthenics and yoga stretches in your classroom, take a quick walk, or jog outside if you have a good space for that.

10 – Implement some silent working time. Allowing talking in low voices does not work for some classes. Silence (or maybe playing quiet instrumental music) might be exactly what your class needs.

And finally: Work on building those relationships.

11 – Greet your students at the door in the morning or when they come to your class. Speak to every student and smile. You will be pleasantly surprised at how this helps you start on a positive note with each student.

12 – Another way to liven up a routine is to use attendance questions. Here are some suggestions!

13 – Learn about your students’ interests and build relationships with families. Think about incorporating dialogue journals as a way to build relationships with students.

I have lots of tips for building relationships and communicating with families in this course!

14 – Address individual problems individually. Have private conversations with students who are having difficulty.

A good way to start these conversations is to ask how things are going with them. They may open up. If not, start describing (in a calm way) what you see them doing or what you are noticing about their behavior.

Ask if they have noticed the same things. Ask them if they understand why these behaviors are a problem for them. Make sure you emphasize the fact that you are here for them and that you want to help them resolve their issues.

Talk about what you might do together to help them improve their behaviors. When you have an agreement with them, be sure to emphasize, again, that you care about them and you are here to help them do and be their best.

Ask yourself, “What does this student need right now?” and go from there. Sometimes you find things out that you had no idea were happening.

This won’t solve everything, but it can help a lot and is always worth a try.

15 – Notice the positives and teach your students to do the same. Focusing only on what needs to be “fixed” or what isn’t going well will quickly bring you down.

Designate an appreciation time in your morning meeting or as a closing activity at the end of the day.

Leave positive post-its on student desks, thanking them for something they are doing well. (Try to do this for every student within two to three weeks, then start all over.)

16 – My favorite bottom-line strategy: default to compassion. Simply asking, “Is everything okay?” goes a long way.

Here are a couple of bonus strategies that will take more planning in advance:
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17 – Talk with your grade-level team about possibly “bouncing” students to another classroom. This works incredibly well if the group dynamics in your classroom are making it difficult for students to get back on track.

Sometimes, a change of scenery and a fresh start in another room are all it takes to get a student reset and refocused. Make sure that you are returning the favor to your team!

18 – You may have heard of “ketchup and relish” days. This is when you set aside time for your students to either “ketchup” on unfinished work (or have time to practice classroom routines/procedures they have not mastered yet) or “relish” some free time. You could schedule this once a week or once every two weeks. (Of course, you can call it whatever you want if you don’t like the “ketchup and relish” idea!)

Remember: nothing works for all students all the time. But having a “menu” of options is helpful because you will always have something else to try.

I hope these strategies help make your classroom a better place for you to be, no matter the time of year!

All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!

When you and your students return to school from a break, it’s a great time to review and possibly change some routines.

Here are 20 suggestions!

1 – Implement (or re-teach) hand signals as a nonverbal way to communicate with you.
Here is the link to a free version of signs on Teachers Pay Teachers.

2 – Change up your attention signals. This blog post explains some ways to do that. Some teachers like to use a signal, such as a chime or a wireless doorbell.

3 – Tighten up your morning arrival routine. Review what you expect your students to do when they enter your classroom. Make a poster if a visual aid would be helpful. Consider what morning work you can provide for your students to complete. (Completing any unfinished work and independent reading are always good options.)

4 – Tighten up your afternoon dismissal routine. Review what you expect your students to do at the end of the day. Make a poster if that would be helpful. Practice this routine earlier in the day if it’s a little messy.

5 – Change how your students line up, just to make things interesting!

6 – Use timers (especially if you make them visual) to help kids manage their time or to know how much time remains before the next transition. These are a good option if your students need small, individual timers.

Classroom Screen is a great way to post directions and include a timer for students to see.
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7 – Use turn-in trays for student work. Some teachers like to use just one tray, and others prefer to have separate trays for different subjects (or for different classes if you teach the same subject).

8 – If students are having trouble remembering to write their names on their papers, have them use a highlighter to highlight their names before turning in work.

9 – Greet students at the door. It is so simple but so effective in giving you great information about your students at the start of the day.

10 – Consider using attendance questions as part of your morning routine.

11 – Create a chart with “anchor activities,” tasks that students may do when their work is done. Or create a “must-do/may-do” list for each subject and post it on the board or whiteboard.

12 – Once a month, have students clean their table areas (or desks), binders or folders, and cubbies. Then have them change seats! (That’s their “reward.”)

13 – If pencils are a problem, consider a policy like this one. You can also just buy or request bulk pencil donations from anywhere you can get them and keep a stash on hand.

14 – Classroom jobs can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make them. Some teachers have students apply for jobs. Some teachers give every student a job, but rotate who does what jobs daily. Do whatever works for you.

Here is the easiest classroom jobs system: rotate through the names on your class list and choose two students daily to be the “teacher helpers.” These students get to be the line leaders, pass out or collect papers and supplies, turn lights on or off, and generally do whatever you need them to do during the day.

Train the first two kids on the first or second day of school. Then, when you rotate to the following two names, have the first pair “train” the second pair of students. And so on. No more coming up with a job for every student.

What if a student is absent? You could either go on to the next name on your list or draw a random name. Do you let students make up their turn when they return from being absent? That is up to you, but I generally don’t do that. We rotate so frequently that their turn comes up again pretty quickly.

15 – Use daily exit tickets and change them up so nothing ever becomes too routine. Here are some great examples from We Are Teachers.
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16 – Consider making a classroom transformation for an upcoming unit! Here are some examples.

17 – I mentioned hand signals before as an example of nonverbal reminders. Another great nonverbal reminder is to have a visual that reminds your students what they are working toward. For example, if students earn tickets or tokens toward a class reward, simply show them (or hold up) the ticket or token. That simple visual is often all that is needed to remind your students of their goals.

18 – Have students create or change bulletin boards or displays. Displaying student work is always a good idea, making the classroom more student-friendly. Allow your students to make posters or charts about books you’ve read or are reading as a class. They can also make teaching posters for math, science, or social studies topics.

19 – Don’t grade everything! If you’re grading everything your students are doing, either they are not practicing enough, or you are working yourself to death. I created a guide for how to deal with all the papers and assessments.

20 – Consider refreshing your own before-school and after-school routines. Here’s my quick guide for doing that.

What routines do you like to revisit or simplify after school breaks? Let me know!

I’m creating a mini-course on resetting your classroom. Interested! Join the waiting list here and I’ll let you know when it’s ready! (This does not obligate you in any way.)

All of my content is intended to save teachers time and energy. My goal is to make good teaching sustainable while having a life outside of teaching. Let me know how I can help YOU with this quick form!