Classroom Jobs Made Easy

For the first 15 years or so of my teaching career (which makes me sound older than dirt!) I chose and displayed classroom jobs the traditional way. I had the requisite door holder, line leader, paper passer, etc. This works. It worked for me, kinda, for many moons.

Over the years I had a few problems that irked me. First the perpetual moaning that so-and-so hasn't been line leader in forever (from both students and their parents). Then there was the fact that I would usually forget to change over the jobs until Monday when we were heading out of the room for the first time in a rush and we had no door holder. If I did remember, I was annoyed by the time it took me to pick all the jobs and move the little cards around the bulletin board. I also have limited bulletin board space and really can't staple much to the walls. All of these things were livable though. The one thing that really annoyed me was that I could never remember who was supposed to do what! I can't even tell you the number of times I would be standing with a stack of papers in my hand asking, "Where are my paper passers? Who are my paper passers? Paper Passers Please??!!" as I squinted across the room to try to read the names on the job chart.

So, in an effort to maintain my sanity and eyesight, I came up with another solution. I now have just 2 daily helpers who do pretty much EVERY job that needs to be done in a day. I choose two kids each day to be my Boehm Buddies and they get to be line leader, door holder, paper passer, errand runner, and so on and so on. Here's how we display the jobs this year:

This is on the front whiteboard. That magnetic pocket is awesome for this. I actually had it for a while and wasn't sure how to use it. I printed all of the kids names on cute little graphics and added a magnet to the back. Now all the kids who have not had a job yet live in the front pocket. After a kid has a turn at being a  Boehm Buddy, their name goes in the back pocket until all have had a turn, then we start over again.

I'm loving this set up. Last year, I had their names on little fish cut-outs that lived in this pelican. It was cute, but kind of hard to dig down into to get their names out, then I had to keep the ones already picked on top of the pelican bill which was kind of a pain.

I have also found that some kids are just not cut out for some jobs. And some jobs require some training and commitment on the part of the job holder. So, in addition to daily Boehm Buddies, I have some jobs that are permanent. Permanent as in all year or until I realize I made a horrible mistake by choosing that kid for that job.One permanent job is for 2 librarians. When my kids are done with a book, they don't return it to the proper basket. Instead I have them all put them in the book return basket. This year, it's the cute owl basket perched on the shelf. (this was before the library was all finished. Excuse the naked baskets...)

I teach the librarians how to follow the stickers to return the books to the proper baskets and they do it whenever they have a few free minutes. I make sure to pick kids who are fast finishers and seem pretty organized. I can spot my potential librarians pretty quickly.

Other permanent jobs include tables washers and floor sweepers. Each class chooses a team of 3 to stay behind the class and clean the lunch table and sweep the floor. From the volunteers, I usually choose three kids who seem to work well together and can handle the few minutes of freedom they get walking back to the classroom by themselves.

Other permanent employees include my tech team (2 kids who can turn the computers off and on and troubleshoot minor problems) and one final job is the clip keeper. That lucky little kid makes sure all of the clips on our clip chart are moved back to Ready to Learn for the next day.

Even if a nugget has a permanent job, they also stay in the rotation for Boehm Buddy. So hypothetically, my Boehm Buddy might also be my librarian.

Since I've changed to this simpler system, I've been much happier. Kids get to do all the jobs and more often than they used to. I only have to remember two kids each day, and everyone seems to be ok with the whole shebang.

At this stage in the game, anything that simplifies my life and saves my sanity is too good to keep to myself, so I just thought I'd share the idea with you. I'd love to hear your thoughts on class jobs!