I don’t know about your classroom, but my self contained classroom was always hectic in the mornings. It took me some trial and error to come up with a system that works for us. I have talked a bit about my morning work routine in the classroom, but last year that wasn’t really working for my students to I added in something new. Adding a morning choice time into our routine helped my students make choices in the classroom. It also helped us ease into a morning work routine. Want to know how I set up a morning choice routine and how it works? Keep reading!
1. Get Set Up
The first thing I did when setting up a morning choice time in my classroom was to determine which choice time activities I wanted available in my classroom. I decided on about 6 choices, but posted 4. This allows me to rotate through choices and keep things novel. The choice I came up with were:
- Toys
- Magnets
- Book
- Puzzles
- Coloring
- Play Dough
Once I had my choices sorted out, I found an easel to post the choices on. Then I grabbed some clothespins and wrote students names on the clothespins.
Now that we have everything ready, I made sure to gather the materials that were available that week and place them at centers in our classroom.
2. Teach Choice Time
When students came to school, their schedule had an icon for morning choice time. Students would transition to the board and move their clothespin to the activity they wanted to participate in. Once their clothespin was moved, they were able to go to the station with their choice.
3. Moving Toward Morning Work
I’m a fan of starting out the day with an academic focus. That’s why I use morning work. Once we have our morning choice routine down, I was able to reintroduce morning work. In this new setup, I was able to focus on 2-3 students completing morning work. Once they were working independently, I was able to add a new 2-3 students to our morning work table.
This didn’t mean that our morning choice went away. My students love engaging in non-contingent reinforcer time (and it gives me a chance to test out some new reinforcers with students)! We just changed how they had access to this time. We moved from immediate access to a delayed access by engaging in choice time after our morning work was complete.
If you’re struggling with a transition or part of your day, try adding a choice time into it. Then you can reintroduce the activity that was more challenging for students. I’m happy to help you get started with these free visuals and icons you can use in your classroom!
