Time-Savers! Anyone that knows me will tell you that I am all about saving time. After all, if I am going to wake up at 6:50 and be at school by 7:20 then I must be good with time management, right?! Or maybe I'm just super lazy ;)
So, let's start in the home. I refuse to wake up early. It's just not my thing. So, I always prep, prep, prep the night before. I lay out clothes, make lunches, shower, get my bag ready, and even make my ice water the night before. If I know I'm going to be out late then I do this before we head out to church or wherever we are going. It's almost a sickness :)
It does help that Joelle and Mr. Lemons are sleeping while I'm getting ready. They don't have to be at work/school until much later, so everyone is snoozing while I'm trying to get ready in 20 minutes! However, I do the same things for Joelle the night before. I actually got her uniforms all ready on Friday night for the week coming up. I felt super accomplished!
You are probably thinking... Amy, I could give a rip what you do in the morning so that you can sleep in while I'm up at 4:30 with 5 crying kiddos getting everyone ready for school. I get it! But, I do believe that my time management translates into the classroom as well. There's a lot I do at work to save me time!
1. Grading Papers- I stopped letting papers stack up years ago. I would get overwhelmed and just throw the stack away. Here's what I do now (for the most part)... I grade papers as students are turning them in if at all possible. I don't have a "finished" basket or anything like that. My students bring me their papers when they are finished. Normally, I grade it quickly and let them fix their errors. This saves me a TON of time and it helps my students to get immediate feedback!
2. I try and use charts, graphic organizers, journal entries more than once. For example, when we were learning about plural nouns, we used this same chart for 3 days in a row. Each morning I had 12-14 words projected and they just added to their chart. This also saves a lot of paper!
3. Word Wall Words- I hang my word wall words in a bucket on my word wall! This is the first year that I've tried this, and I LOVE it! I'm not searching for words, going to a cabinet, or file... they are right on the wall! Very convenient which means... I'm saving time!
I also do this for my Spanish word wall :)
I put the words in order at the beginning of the year so that I just have to grab the current words and staple 'em up!
4. Plan in Advance! I am normally planned for the following week by Tuesday afternoon. This helps me get all of my materials ready to go by Thursday or Friday!
Make sure to link up with Blog Hoppin' to share your ideas this week!
