31/180 DAILY CHECK IN ROUTINES

Our curriculum guide suggested that we have the students sign in daily.

Well, that seemed like a good idea, except that it would take a long time to have each child sign in.

I know because I tried it one day.

We ended up having kids come up during breakfast to sign in.

Maybe I will try it later in the year or call them up one at a time.

For now, students check in each morning by finding their name cards (printed name and photo), and then placing their name cards in a pocket chart. Pocket chart has name labels taped on so that students can match name cards with name label.

At first, students had a challenging time matching names. But happy to say, that they can all match their names now, even though a few still don't recognize their names from a group of names. Small steps... later on in the year, I will replace the name photo cards with just written names and then move towards recognizing last names.


After all the cards are placed in pocket chart, we start our morning rote counting. We count 3x each morning.

1. We count from 0-10 using our fingers pointing up.  Then I turn fingers downward towards the floor and we count backwards from 10 fingers to 0. Zero is important!

2. After our 10 count. We count how many students are here each day (usually 25). I point to each name photo as students count. We also visual look at how many photos are missing to count how many students are NOT HERE.

3. Last we make a circle and count/exercise to 100 using this song: Count to 100  I don't use the video, just the song.

Then it's breakfast.
Simple,
Predictable,
Opening routines that teach.