Heidi: This is episode 223 of Teacher Approved.
You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
Heidi.
Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
Window, where we give research based and teacher approved
strategies that make teaching less stressful and more
effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from
each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
the show.
Emily: Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today's
episode, we are talking about how to turn your individual
procedures into routines that actually stick, and sharing a
teacher approved tip for handling your own routines.
Heidi: Let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick
win to help you boost your classroom community. Emily, what
is our suggestion for this week?
Emily: Well, if you haven't already, take a couple minutes
during your prep time today to set up a table to track positive
communication for each student. A simple way to do this is to
list students' names down the side and then have a column for
each month. Then it's easy to keep track of which families
you've reached out to recently. Making communication with
families a positive experience and not just something that
happens when there's trouble, can go a long way to
strengthening the school home partnership. And I can vouch for
this from the parent side, that I hate feeling like every time I
see an email from a teacher that something must be wrong. So it
would be great if sometimes it's positive communication as well.
Heidi: Well, if you like this idea or anything else that we
share on the podcast, would you take a second and give us a five
star rating? Ratings and reviews are one way that new listeners
find us. So really, truly, every rating and review is a huge help
to us.
Emily: So if you've been listening for a while, you know
that we are big believers, that almost seems like an
understatement, huge fans of strong classroom procedures. We
have talked a lot about how to design them, how to teach them,
using our tell try tally talk method, and how to course
correct when they slide.
Heidi: But, this might be hard to believe, there is actually
one part of procedures that we have never tackled. How do you
take all of those individual procedures that you have been
working so hard to teach and link them into routines that
your students can actually follow? And today we're going to
tell you how to make those routines stick without having to
turn into the nagging police.
Emily: So think of a single procedure as one Lego brick. It
does what it needs to do, but if you want something that really
works for you, like a smooth morning start, you need to snap
those bricks together.
Heidi: I love that analogy, and that's perfect for your Lego
family.
Emily: Yes.
Heidi: A routine is a string of procedures in a set order that
is done so often that it runs on autopilot. The goal is that the
brain doesn't have to think. It just does.
Emily: Think back to how you taught your individual
procedures. If you used our tell try tally talk method—are we
going to start calling that the 4T method? Are we going to, I
don't know, but we'll stick with tell try tally talk. If you used
our method, you clearly explained the procedure and
modeled each step. You had your students try it out with your
guidance, you tallied how everything went and celebrated
progress, and then you talked over what worked, what was
tricky, what practice was needed.
Heidi: That method works beautifully for individual
procedures, but let's dive into how to connect those procedures
into a seamless routine. This time we will use a three step
process of anchoring, expanding and reinforcing.
Emily: Wait, but there's no alliteration in that one.
Heidi: I feel like we're really letting the side down. It all
has an "ing," does that count?
Emily: Okay. That is something, I guess. But you know we love a
process, so let's look at the first step in this new process,
which is anchoring. This is where you pick one solid
procedure that's already working well and use it as the
foundation for the whole routine. Think of this as the
core of your routine. It's the one thing that, when it's in
place makes everything else easier.
Heidi: For a morning routine, this might be students unpacking
their backpacks correctly. For transitions, it could be having
students respond quickly to your attention signal.
Emily: So the key here is to choose something that's already
pretty solid. Don't try to anchor a routine to a procedure
that is still wobbly. You want your strongest procedure as your
foundation.
Heidi: And here's where a lot of teachers get tripped up. They
try to teach the entire morning routine as one giant procedure.
And I have done this myself, but let me tell you friends, that's
like trying to swallow a watermelon whole.
Emily: Oh, that sounds miserable. That's gonna end
badly. If your morning routine includes coming into the
building, entering the classroom, unpacking backpacks,
making lunch choices, getting materials, starting morning
work, and knowing what to do while waiting for others, that
is not one procedure. That's like seven procedures that have
to happen in sequence.
Heidi: And when you look at it that way, it's no wonder that
your kids are having a hard time following through. They just
can't master that many steps in one go. A good rule of thumb is
that if a procedure has more than about five steps or so,
give or take, it's time to break it down. The smaller you can
make each task, the more deeply students can internalize it.
Emily: And when they're shorter, they're faster to teach too. So
that's just a little win. Okay, so identify the Keystone
procedure in each routine and go all in on making it run like
clockwork. That is the first step. Then you can start
expanding. This means adding the next logical step in the
sequence.
Heidi: If unpacking backpacks is your anchor to your morning
routine, the next step might be making your lunch choice without
having to be reminded. That used to kill me every day. How many
days are we in school? Anyway, you want that to be automatic,
and then you would teach that procedure separately, right?
Tell try tally talk, until it's solid.
Emily: Then you'd start connecting them in your
student's mind. The students already know how to do each
piece, but you're helping them see how it all flows together.
So first unpack your backpack using our five steps, then make
your lunch choice using our three steps.
Heidi: Keep expanding one procedure at a time until you
have built the full routine. You know, plan on this taking at
least two weeks. That is totally normal, and it's to be expected.
Emily: If things start to fall apart as you're connecting
procedures, pull back for a minute and try to pinpoint the
issue, instead of plowing ahead, because you want this all done
and out of your hair.
Heidi: Oh, yes, figuring out a problem now will save you from
having to deal with it for nine more months.
And that brings us to the final step, which is reinforcing. This
is where the magic happens, because this is when your
routine moves from something we do because the teacher told us
to, to something we just do.
Emily: This is the point where your routine will either take
off or fizzle out. The goal is to train your students brains to
run this sequence without you prompting them every step of the
way, and that only happens with intentional, repeated
reinforcement.
Heidi: Think of it like teaching kids to tie their shoes. If
you've ever lived through that, you don't just show them once
and then expect them to do it perfectly every time. You have
to practice a lot.
Emily: Yep, and it's going to take a lot of practice with your
routines too. But that doesn't mean it has to be drudgery. Have
some fun with it. You could set up a bingo board or a tic tac
toe board with all of the different procedures that make
up your dismissal routine. Every time they complete one part of
the routine without needing instructions from you, they get
to cross off a square. If they get a bingo or a tic tac toe,
they get a small reward, and when the whole board is full,
they get a larger reward.
Heidi: Yeah, we want to make sure that practice doesn't start
feeling like a punishment. Another thing that I like to do
with my students was to time them. I would say something
like, okay, yesterday, it took two minutes and 28 seconds for
everyone to get their notebooks put away and come to the rug. I
think we can do it faster. Can we do it in two minutes? Kids
love racing. And the nice thing about this is that it can
motivate them to kind of push each other to move more quickly,
so you're not the one having to, you know, nudge them along.
Let's let that positive peer pressure work in your favor.
Emily: If you are doing whole class rewards for practicing
routines or anything else, don't let a few kids ruin it for
everyone. If you've got one or two little ones with some
special behavior challenges, like maybe they'll go slow on
purpose, just because everyone else wants them to hurry, then
you can just kind of take them out of the equation.
Heidi: Right. If all but your two most challenging darlings
are at the carpet, count that as a win. Way to hustle, everyone,
you made it to the carpet in one minute and 58 seconds. And then
when someone raises their hand to point out that Dimitri still
isn't at the carpet, just make it a non issue. You know what,
you worry about you and I will worry about Dimitri.
Emily: Yeah, especially because getting attention for it is
probably exactly what Dimitri wants. And it's just a good
reminder that most of our management plans will work for
most of our kids most of the time. So put your focus there.
You can set up a personalized plan for Dimitri at a different
time, but it will only make things worse if we turn him into
the class scapegoat. That's not good for anyone.
Heidi: And besides making routine practice fun, you can
also reinforce your expectations by turning it over to the
students. Try assigning helpers for routine checks. Have a
materials monitor who reminds classmates about getting their
pencils, or a line leader who models proper hallway behavior.
Emily: That's nice, because then you're not having to oversee
everything that happens. And when routines start to slide,
because they will, especially after a long weekend or a
holiday, go back to practicing them just like a sports team
runs drills.
Heidi: Don't feel like you have failed if you need to reteach a
routine. This is something honestly that I struggled with.
I used to see this as a failure as a teacher, but it is just a
predictable part of dealing with kids. They need repetition, and
sometimes you need to refresh those neural pathways to get
everyone back on track.
Emily: Now you likely have dozens of routines needed to
make your classroom run, but it's important that you're
putting a lot of time and energy into streamlining what we call
the core four, and these are the routines that truly make or
break your school day.
Heidi: And if you have taught before, you can probably guess
what these are, but they are a calm morning start, orderly
hallway movement, controlled transitions, and efficient end
of day routines. If you can master these four, everything
else in your day becomes so much easier.
Emily: So let's walk through what it looks like to anchor,
expand and reinforce our core four routines. And we'll kick
things off with a calm morning start.
Heidi: For your morning routine, your anchor might be getting the
backpack procedure down. Once that's solid, you expand it with
lunch choice, then getting materials, then starting morning
work. Each step gets taught and practiced separately before you
try to link them.
Emily: When it comes to reinforcing your morning
routine, visual supports are your best friend. Post the steps
of each routine where students can reference them, or where you
can send students to check if they've forgotten something.
Heidi: Yeah, you definitely want to outsource the work of keeping
kids on track as much as possible. So let a display help
you out. You could make a chart or project slides each morning
with the steps that you want students to follow. I was very
analog. I used sentence strips and magnets to put them on my
board because I didn't want to have to write it out every day.
Emily: Yep, I did the same thing, and it definitely does
not need to be fancy. So just make sure you're posting them
where kids can see them every single day, even in the middle
of May, and that they're going to know exactly where to look
each time. It's always going to be in the same place.
Heidi: And if they ask you what they're supposed to be doing,
point them to the display, so they get in the habit of
checking that instead of turning to you for the answers.
Emily: Exactly.
Heidi: Morning routines have to run without much teacher input
because you're busy handling your own routine of getting the
day started. Those posted steps give kids a way to stay on track
without needing you to prompt every single thing.
Emily: If you want a deeper dive, maybe the deepest of
dives, on morning routines, check out our three part Morning
Routine series, which is in episodes 93, 94 and 95 where we
talk about how to set up your own morning routines, as well as
your students.
Heidi: For the next in our core four routines is hallway
movement, and you might anchor this one with the signal to line
up. Then you can expand to walking without talking, then
how to walk while you're carrying supplies, and then what
to do when you arrive at your destination.
Emily: Reinforcing your hallway routine can be a lot of fun. So
try announcing that you've chosen a mystery walker. If this
student remembers your procedures as you travel to your
destination, they'll get a prize, and it's easier to watch
this if you like our strategy for walking at the back of your
class instead of at the front.
Heidi: That does make it simpler, or you can get real
good at walking backwards.
Emily: Yes, you know, both are good skills to have.
Heidi: The prize for the mystery walker can be as simple as a
high five or a sticker. It's the mystery of it all, not the prize
that is going to be most influential on getting your
students to meet your expectations. And another fun
idea is called line freeze. Ashley from Rainbow Skies for
Teachers, shared this with us back in episode 120.
Emily: Oh, and you should definitely go back and listen to
that so you can hear it in her delightful Australian accent.
But basically it's a bit like red light, green light. You lead
your line down the hall normally at the front of the line, but
every once in a while, you flip around and look at the kids.
Their goal is to freeze in place as soon as you turn.
Heidi: That is a really fun game, and it's perfect for the
hallway because it can be done silently. Ashley says that she
has done it with kids from kindergarten to sixth grade, and
that they all enjoy it. So give that one a try if you want to
add a little whimsy to your hallway routine.
Emily: And go back to check out episode 89 if you want even more
hallway tips.
But for now, let's look at how to handle your transition
routines. A good place to start here is by anchoring your
attention signal. When that's solid, expand into listening for
all the directions before they start moving, cleaning up
workspaces, then getting materials for the next activity,
and then transitioning to the new location quickly.
Heidi: And we did another three part deep, deep dive in episodes
48, 49 and 50. This one happened to be on transitions this time
because, as you may have noticed, they are tricky, and
they can eat up a lot of your learning time. So revisit those
episodes, and also check out episode 160 if you want tips for
our final core routine, dismissal.
Emily: This one is hard because you are so tired by this point
in the day. So do what you can to automate this routine as much
as possible. You could anchor it with your procedure for tidying
up desks, then expand to getting take home materials, then
packing backpacks and then getting ready for dismissal.
Heidi: The end of the day is a great time to add in some
student ownership as reinforcement. Besides regular
class jobs like sharpening pencils, you can assign students
to hand out papers, pass out lunch boxes, check that everyone
cleaned under their desk, and really, anything else that the
kids are capable of doing, make them do it.
Emily: For sure, don't take it on yourself to do all of the
work. And the beauty of this approach is that once these
routines are solid, your classroom really does start to
run like clockwork.
Heidi: Now this does take a lot of time and energy and
intention. I want to be clear about that, because we know how
much work this is, but we promise solid routines are worth
it, even if they're not your favorite thing to teach.
Emily: I know, no one goes into teaching because they love
procedures. Although maybe we do. Do we? We talk about them a
lot, maybe we do.
Heidi: I didn't start out loving procedures, like, I got there
once I saw what they could do for me.
Emily: That's I was gonna say. I think we love procedures because
we love what they give you as a teacher. And obviously, no
student says their favorite part of school is your efficient
dismissal routine.
Heidi: But it would be nice if they pointed that out. But it's
procedures and the routines that they create that are going to
make the good parts of teaching, the stuff you like, possible.
They enable you to be the kind of teacher you want to be.
They're what create consistency so students feel safe and know
what to expect. They prevent problems by minimizing
opportunities for kids to test your limits, and they free you
up to focus on your students instead of logistics.
Emily: So let's wrap up with a quick recap of how to turn
procedures into routines that stick. First, anchor your
routine to one solid procedure that's already working well,
then expand by adding one procedure at a time until you've
built the full sequence. Finally, reinforce the routine
as a whole, not just the individual steps.
Heidi: Focus on your core four routines—morning start, hallway
movement, classroom transitions, and end of day. These make or
break your classroom flow. So look for opportunities to
reinforce your expectations, so students will want to meet them.
Emily: And remember that this will take time. Plan on at least
two weeks for the basic structures to stick, but there
will still be a period of watching and reinforcing before
it becomes truly automatic.
Heidi: And we would love to hear how you're building routines
this year. Come join the conversation in our Teacher
Approved Facebook group.
Emily: Now for our Teacher Approved Tip of the Week, where
we share an actionable tip to help you elevate what matters
and simplify the rest. This week's teacher approved tip is
to create your own routines. So tell us about this, Heidi.
Heidi: Well, have you ever noticed how satisfying it is
when your own personal routines just click? Like when you
develop that evening routine where you prep everything for
the next day, and then morning you feels like you have gained a
superpower. Well, let's lean into that. This week, pick one
routine in your personal life that's feeling a little chaotic
and apply the same anchoring, expanding and reinforcing
approach we talked about today.
Emily: So maybe that'll be your after school routine, or your
Sunday meal prep, or even just how you unwind in the evening.
Start with one solid step that's already working and then build
from there.
Heidi: And we did talk about teacher morning routines as part
of our morning routine deep dive. So the ones that focus on
teachers specifically are episodes 93, which is your
getting out the door morning routine, and episode 94 that's
like, once you get to school morning routine. So definitely
check those out. And just like with your students, give
yourself time to practice and adjust. Those neuronal pathways
need repetition at home, too.
Emily: The best part is that when your personal routines are
running smoothly, you'll have more mental energy for all of
the amazing teaching you want to do.
Heidi: All right, to wrap up the show, we're sharing what we're
giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your
extra credit?
Emily: I'm giving us credit to the Good Hang podcast with Amy
Poehler. Have you listened to this, Heidi?
Heidi: I haven't. It keeps showing up in my feed, so I've
been meaning to, I just haven't had a chance yet.
Emily: Same, and I just barely started listening a couple days
ago, and it has exceeded my expectations. I think Amy might
have been born to be a podcaster, not an actress. I
like her as an actress, too, to be clear.
Heidi: I keep getting ads for her master class on improv, and
she's so delightful. I keep thinking, do I need to take a
master class on improv? I don't want to do improv, but she's so
fun.
Emily: Be worth it to hang out with Amy. And usually I don't
care to watch video podcasts. I just want to listen to a
podcast. But I got fed one of these on YouTube, and I was
like, Oh, this is so fun. And so now I just kind of have it on in
the corner while I'm working the last few days, and it's been so
fun. And seriously, every episode is genuinely a good
hang. And one thing I love that she does is at the beginning of
each episode, she does a video chat with someone she knows who
also knows her guest for the episode, and then they say good
things about the guests behind their backs.
Heidi: That is so fun!
Emily: It's so cute. So like, before she talked to Andy
Samberg, she called Seth Meyers, and they talked about him, and
like, how they got to know him and what they love about him.
And then Seth, like, gave her an idea for a joke to play on Andy.
And it was just fun. It was so cute.
Heidi: That's such a fun way to introduce a guest.
Emily: I know, it just felt so, it's just wholesome and fun, and
it just makes me smile. So if you need a mood booster, check
out the Good Hang podcast.
Heidi: Well, I'll definitely have to try that out, because
I'm going to be working for quite a while today.
Emily: Yeah, pull it up. Start with the Adam Scott episode,
because you're a Parks and Rec-er. So start with that one,
even though you haven't watched Severance, so you won't get all
the Severance talk, it's still worth it to hear them talk about
Ben and Leslie is just so cute.
Heidi: They're so good. I do love that. Okay, I'll definitely
have to check that out.
Emily: Okay, let me know what you think. What's getting your
extra credit?
Heidi: Well, I'm giving extra credit to the Lady Stacks
Ultimate Book Tracker.
Emily: Ooh, it sounds fancy.
Heidi: Now, I haven't been someone who keeps track of my
reading, because when I tried, I would get too caught up on how
much or how little I was reading, and then it would start
to feel like a chore, or that I was being graded and I was
failing somehow. So I had to stop doing that. But I kept
seeing ads. I'm so susceptible for ads, apparently.
Emily: Apparently.
Heidi: But I kept getting ads for this digital reading
tracker. And 100% I have to say, I only bought it because I was
trying to figure out how this person, Lady Stacks, how she
managed to get the images to work well in Google Sheets,
because it's a whole, you get a whole little like library image,
but it's all in Google Sheets. And I have to say, I could not
figure it out, because those tabs are locked.
Emily: Oh, dang it.
Heidi: But it turns out that it has been fun to play around with
just putting in my own reading. So what you do is you type your
book titles on one tab and then a little book is added to your
cute library picture on the next tab.
Emily: Oh, cute.
Heidi: It's very satisfying. I love seeing my little library
grow, and there's lots of info, like page totals and graphs. I
haven't been on story graph because I know a lot of people
use that instead of good reads, so I think it might be similar
to that. But I don't know that you get to make a cute library
in story graphs.
Emily: I bet not. And I the reason I haven't switched to
story graph is I don't think it's free, and I don't want to
pay.
Heidi: Oh, that's annoying.
Emily: Well, not, I'll pay for something. I just don't want to
pay continuously for a tool. I could be wrong, though. The
people listening may be like, No, it's, you don't have to pay
for it. I have no idea. I should have probably checked that
before I made that statement, but it sticks in my head that
that's why I didn't switch over, was like, Oh, I don't want to
pay for it.
Heidi: That's good to know. Well, I did have to pay for the
book tracker, but it has been fun. I thought, Oh, I could make
a new sheet for each year and have my little library just
built up, so.
Emily: That's so cute. I'm definitely gonna check it out. I
do use Goodreads, but there isn't an easy, satisfying way
to, like, see everything you've read. It's kind of utilitarian.
And I also get stressed out in Goodreads about the reviews,
because I feel I overthink the stars, because sometimes, well,
I really enjoyed this. So it's like a four star, but really
it's the writing's not that great, the story's not that
great. It's probably more like a three star, but I liked it. So,
you know, I just spend too much effort on that. Plus, I feel so
guilty ever giving anybody.
Heidi: I know it's hard.
Emily: Like, less than, yeah, I feel bad every time I give even
a three star. I'm like, Oh, I'm such a jerk. So.
Heidi: Well, now you can rate lowly in private. No one will
ever see it.
Emily: There we go. Okay, I'll check it out.
Heidi: And there's a link in the show notes if anyone else wants
to check it out.
That's it for today's episode. Remember our three steps for
connecting your individual procedures into smooth running
classroom routines, and then you can try out those same steps to
your own routines.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
episode.
Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
Bye for now.
Emily: Bye.