How to Create a Calm Classroom Environment
Last week at school was crazy town and as most of you know, I’m a bit of a control a freak so being out of routine increases my stress cortisol levels by ten fold!
This week, I plan to get back into creating my Calm & Consistent Classroom that I’m known for at school.
Today, I thought I’d share some of the simple routines I follow to create this and ways that you can try in your room tomorrow!
Like they say, it really is the little things that make big differences in the whole scheme of things…So here we go:
1. Have relaxing music playing in the background before the kids walk into class
2. Have a morning desk activity already placed on each student’s desk
3. Some morning desk work I’ve planned for this week includes: no prep
worksheets that have combined literacy and math concepts on the one page, a number
sequence dot to dot, sight word flash cards on a ring for students to write
sentences on their mini-white boards.
4. Keep learning sessions short, sharp and focused and have a brain break when
the kids transition from one learning activity or subject to another (I set a brain
break timer on for 30 minutes)
5. Incorporate Brain Breaks into learning – they don’t have to be fancy, fun
and quick but fun movement based activities for example: 5 star jumps, creep
like a tiger, flutter around the room like a butterfly…don’t overthink it – just
be creative!
6. My school is a certified ‘Healthy School’ where the kids are encouraged to
bring in a small tub of chopped up crunchy food like apples, carrots, celery. This
tub of crunch food is left on kids’ desks so they can nibble throughout the day to
provide them with energy to learn.
7. Before the days ends, everyone (not only the helper kids), everyone is
responsible for cleaning up the classroom, placing the next morning’s
activity on the desk (this also gives you the opportunity to quickly explain
what the task is so next morning when the kids come in, they get straight
to work…genius!
8. At the end of the day, children are encouraged to think pair share with their
partner what their favorite part of the school day was. This is so effective
because it means that EVERY child in your room will go home with a
positive thing to share with their families.
Read more about this in this blog.
Read this blog on Science of Reading Comprehension Worksheets!
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How to create a calm classroom environment
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