As a new school year dawns on us, parents are busy packing up their children’s lunch boxes and backpacks and sending them off for another year of learning.
But some teachers have taken to social media to share the “hacks” they use around the classroom to make learning a little more stress-free and fun. All I can say is, where were these ideas when I was a student in elementary school?
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall
Gordon Ramsay is in the building. Actually, no he’s not, but I bet he’d be impressed with this teacher’s setup in this home economics class.
Perched above the countertop is a large angled mirror, so whether you’re in the front row or the back, students can see what the teacher is cooking, all from the comfort of their own desks.
Be Friends With Organization
Whether you’re a student or a teacher, you’ll enjoy your life a lot more if you’re organized. This teacher noticed that as she gets “closer to the end of the school year, the amount of paperwork goes wayyyy up as we finalize everything."
So she decided to organize students’ graded and ungraded homework in neat folders that are easy to transport to and from school.
Teacher Toolbox
Every homeowner, contractor, or car mechanic has a toolbox, and it turns out that teachers should have one too.
From glue sticks and white-out to sticky notes and highlighters, everything is neatly arranged in their individual box and this teacher says that her “simple hack makes my organization loving heart so happy.”
The “No Questions” Button
"So many of my kiddos still have trouble determining if it’s an appropriate time to ask a question or not. Enter the ‘No Questions!’ button. When the light is ON, it’s a visual reminder that I can not be interrupted except for emergencies. But when the light is OFF, I am available to answer their non-emergency questions.”
So what does this teacher count as emergencies? If a student is bleeding, throwing up, or if Taylor Swift walks into the classroom.
Use Your Inside Voice
The sound of a rowdy classroom full of kids is equivalent to the noise a jet engine makes, but this teacher’s frugal hack will let kids know what their appropriate volume level should be when in the classroom.
Little light-up buttons that display “speaker,” “normal,” “whisper,” and “no talking” let kids know when they can be as loud as a jet engine or as quiet as a mouse.
Right On Point
School pencil sharpeners are notorious for eating students’ unsuspecting pencils, so after last year’s pencil sharpening faux pas, this teacher found a clever way to keep them organized.
“I plan on having a set of sharpened pencils in the SHARP jar every morning and throughout the day if a student breaks their pencil, they can put theirs in the DULL jar and take a sharp one. At the end of the day, I will sharpen all of the dull, fill up the sharp jar again, and REPEAT.”
Invitation Cards
This teacher wondered why she was disrupting her entire class in order to call over a few students, and in the process “telling them to stop the work they’re doing and pay attention to a few kids moving to the table.”
So she instead found a much more peaceful way to inform individual students that she’d like to talk to them.
Virtual Learning
It’s not known how much longer virtual learning will be in students’ lives, but in the meantime, this teacher found a creative way to help her young students navigate through the chaotic and noisy world of remote learning.
“They caught on SO fast. Now all I say is ‘please mute your microphone’ and I hold up the visual and they know exactly what to press!”
Teachers’ Book Club
Whether you’re a kid or an adult, everyone has their favorite book (or books). Excellent for cognitive development and a literary escape to another world, reading is a habit everyone should learn to love.
With that in mind, this teacher decided to share with her class the books she is currently reading and the ones she just wrapped up in hopes they’ll join her in storytime.
Classroom Couture
Now, this teacher is taking fashion to another level.
The front of her dress depicts drawings done by her students at the beginning of the school year, while the back of the dress features drawings that they did at the end of the school year, therefore showing their artistic progress.
Feel The Burn
Now who ever said that today's kids were lazy and didn't get enough exercise?
While this little girl is busy learning, she's also busy breaking a sweat as her classroom desk was outfitted as a stationary bike.
Dry-Erase Board
Dry-erase boards and their erasers can get messy after a while and become unsightly. But several teachers have shared their hacks to ensure a clean dry-erase board and eraser.
Teachers swear by microfiber cloths and even kids’ socks to guarantee a shiny dry-erase board every time.
A “Word Wall”
As this teacher puts it, “fifth graders are not great spellers,” so that’s why she always begins her school year with a “word wall.” This is where students can request that a difficult word be spelled out on the wall so they don’t have to ask her how to spell or pronounce it later on.
We bet this teacher always won her spelling competitions growing up.
“I Can” With Curtains
Kid’s classrooms are very visual spaces, and it’s easy to run out of room for fun display boards. But after a quick trip to the store, this teacher figured out a way to solve this problem and gain a little bit of extra space.
Using shower curtains, hooks, and permanent markers, this teacher was able to extend her bulletin and display boards out.
“Question Of The Day”
This teacher is a big fan of STEM disciplines, and he wants to spread his love of science and math with his students.
By purchasing wooden alphabet and number blocks at a yard sale, he’s able to creatively pose a new question to his students each day and get their mental gears turning.
Get Plenty Of Eggs-ercize
If it’s after Easter and the floor of your home is covered with colorful plastic eggs, this teacher has the perfect idea to turn madness into movement.
She wrote the names of exercises on slips of paper and tucked them into the eggs. Afterward, she mixes them up in a basket and hands them out to squeeze in a few minutes of exercise and get people moving.
Color Me Creative
Art class was where we got to flex our creativity as kids, and most of us probably loved drawing and coloring too. In fact, between pencil crayons, markers, and regular crayons, we all had our favorite utensils.
While art class is where the magic happens, that magic sure can get messy, and luckily this teacher's hack will keep the art room clean for school years to come.
Time To Decorate The Chemis-tree
What better way to get your students to pay attention than peppering in a bit of humor with your day’s lesson plan? This chemistry teacher got into the Christmas spirit by turning this laboratory flask into a “chemis-tree.”
Walter White would be proud.
