dismissal can be a crazy time. So I'm going to share with you today what I like to do
for a smooth and how overall it helps our learning community so that when we're involved
in problem solving or just day to day, it makes the whole classroom just feel like a place
that people want to be and are working together and translates well into every other area of
academics that we're doing throughout the day. Hello and welcome to making number sense
makes sense a podcast for elementary teachers specifically early elementary teachers looking
to really make an impact in the number sense of their students. I feel like when we were
learning how to be teachers, they talked a lot about the importance of routines and we
need routines for classroom community, but never really talked about how one would go
about setting up those routines and what it would actually look like in practice. A while
back I shared a five math games for morning meeting episode that you guys really seem
to like. So I thought I would bring in this dismissal or end of the day routine that isn't
necessarily math related really helps to build a community of learners. The end of the day
can be crazy. You're trying to pack up get folders, make sure nobody forgot anything
and get everybody to the bus on time and the whole way that it set up especially if you
have a special right at the end and you're just transitioning back and trying to get
everything together, it can just be a lot and kids feel that like nervous got to get
it done energy. So that was just not working out and we needed a way to end the day smoothly.
You start the day with morning meeting, we're having a good time and we end the day the
same way with a little bit of fun, but calm like we're still in school. It's not time
for us to go crazy and dismissal is definitely a crazy time, especially with a staggered
dismissal. You have half your class, you don't have half your class. So this is the routine
that worked for me and I'd love to share it with you. The first thing is our packing
up routine like who's going to go when like are you sending kids one by one? Are you sending
them by table? Whatever works for you is the way it works. How it worked for me is I would
have tables go at a time, they get their folders, they get their backpacks and bring everything
to their desk. So it wasn't a pile of kids in the closet trying to get their stuff. After
they packed up, the expectation was that they would leave their their backpacks at their
desks and they would all come to circle for our closing circle. Now closing circle, I
first heard of it from responsive classroom and it's just a way to reflect on the day
and see what went well, what we can do better next time or just share things that they had
a good time with that they really enjoyed. You can ask questions like, like I just asked
what was the best part of your day or you could be more specific like what was your
favorite thing you did in math today? What was your favorite thing you did in art today?
It can also be a great opportunity to bring up any difficulties that we were having. So
maybe you noticed that your kids were having a hard time in the cafeteria. It's a time
that was removed from the cafeteria so they can actually think back and we can try and
fix it. Also, if you noticed kids are doing a great job with something. I liked to bring
in what they call the kindness tree. So it helps kids think about the things that other
kids were doing that were kind for them that might be so and so pushed in their chair for
me. So and so saw my water bottle and gave it to me and just things like that to encourage
kindness and a caring and thoughtful community to close our time together. We would do something
called and I love you ritual which is from conscious discipline but it's basically a
way for us to have a little bit of fun together and in an appropriate way like lots of giggles
with a song or a poem and just a way to connect with each other in the classroom. A lot of
times it would be like a nursery rhyme with little movements that you would do in a pair
or something like that. There's a lot of them and you can definitely Google those things.
There's definitely older kid variations but this is mostly like a young teacher podcast
because I feel like that wasn't something that we were seeing especially math focused.
So we pack up in a calm way you think through like really think through how this routine
is going to work the same way you would think through any routine. How is this going to
work in your classroom with your students and then like I said the expectation is they
come to the carpet. You can have them come with their backpacks or without their backpacks.
It's really up to you and then we get engaged in this closing circle. We have a reflection
question. We talk about what kind things we saw our friends do today or people did for
us today and then at the end we do our little I love you ritual for some fun and connection
at the end of the day. Now at this point I would get my have my kids go get their we're
like ready to go but this is the point where things can descend into chaos because we're
not doing anything structured at this point. It's not a great time to get things out because
we don't have time to put them away because the person who would be putting that stuff
away is yours truly and at the end of the day I'm done. They're done. We just want smooth
sailing especially in my case where my school had a staggered dismissal. So if you were
on this bus you would go this bus you would go and so half your kids are there half your
kids are not there. So there are some videos that my kids enjoyed and just kept everybody
chill. The first one is Ragnolies or sand art. I found this out 100% by mistake. We were
learning about Diwali and I showed them a video of this beautiful sand art someone creating
this beautiful sand art with this calming music. They were entranced. They loved it
so much and they would just sit there and be like wow look at them do that all the colors.
They'd have fun making predictions of what it was going to look like at the end. So that
was definitely a favorite of ours to watch this at the end of the day and the music was
always really calming so it was just a calm environment to leave the classroom. Kind of
along the same vein they liked to watch aquarium footage like all of the fish and all of the
colors they really liked that too. Sometimes they would go for something a little more
but they liked to watch this is so random. They liked to watch these like elaborate hamster
mazes and they loved to watch number blocks and alpha blocks mostly number blocks because
the students who I had at the end of the day knew that I was their quote unquote math teacher.
So they if I did something language arts related in my class they were kind of looking at me
like you're not in the right lane that is not your lane go back to what you should be
doing and not in a bad way. They were just so confused that I would even know anything
about language arts because I didn't teach that. Anyway that would be the one little
mathy thing that they might see which they also really enjoyed and finally the last thing
that they really liked is the mini baking. When people would make mini cakes and mini
anything they really loved that. So all of those things are completely random all over
the place but for a variety sake they like to switch it up and like I said at the end
of the day school is really quote unquote over we're just waiting to go home. It was
a way to set up a calm way to enter the to leave the classroom after we've done all that
work at the beginning of the day to have a calm entry into the classroom. I hope those
ideas were helpful like I said not necessarily a math related episode but an episode to keep
our sanity at the end of the day. So if you have any questions feel free to message me
on Instagram you can always follow me there send me a DM. I love hearing from you I love
hearing things that you want to learn about things that you're like oh I actually didn't
need that maybe focus more on this. I'm always open to ideas. There's also going to be a
link in the show notes for a Google form if you have something specific you'd like me
to do an episode about I am happy to do that as well and until then I will talk to you
next time.