27. Should Kindergarten Students Have Classroom Jobs? Here's Why I Use One Daily Helper Instead

Should kindergarten students have classroom jobs?

Classroom jobs have been a tradition in elementary classrooms for years, but are they actually teaching responsibility or creating more work for teachers?

In this episode, I'm sharing why I stopped using traditional classroom jobs in my kindergarten classroom and switched to a simple Helper of the Day system instead. You'll hear how this change simplified my classroom management, eliminated job chart headaches, and still gave every student meaningful leadership opportunities.

If you're preparing your kindergarten classroom for back-to-school and wondering whether classroom jobs are worth it, this episode will help you decide what works best for your students—and your sanity.

Resources Mentioned:

🔗 First Week of Kindergarten Blueprint

Show Notes: https://kindergartentoolbox.com/episode-27-should-kindergarten-students-have-classroom-jobs/

Transcript

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Should you be assigning your kindergarten students individual classroom jobs? It's one of those questions that comes up this time of year especially. And if you look around other kindergarten classrooms, you may notice many of them seem to have these individual jobs, like line leader, paper passer, you know, those kinds of things. But what if I told you classroom jobs are actually creating more work for you and not really teaching any responsibility or saving you any time? In today's episode, I share why I stopped assigning classroom jobs in kindergarten and why I switched to one daily helper instead. How this simple change saved me so much time, reduced classroom management issues, and helped my classroom run way more smoothly. So let's dig in. Welcome to the Kindergarten Toolbox Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Murray, here to help you simplify kindergarten with tools and strategies that actually work with real live five and six year olds. Let's dive into your shortcut to calmer days and more confident writers. I think classroom jobs have been a tradition at least since I was a kid in school, and that, as I aged myself, was 30 some years ago. And so I think we get that nostalgia feel of we need to have a line leader, a caboose, a paper passer, a calendar helper, a lunch helper, the lights helper, a classroom messenger. And once you figure out all the jobs, then you have to come up with the cutesy name titles like the person who turns on and off the lights can't be the lights helper. They have to be the electricity monitor. Like we're tricking them into thinking that the job is more important than it actually is. So let me take you back to my first year teaching. I had 17 students, and so I was always taught in college that you should have classroom jobs because it teaches classroom responsibility. I was like, okay, that's part of building my classroom community, so I need to do that. So I decided I was going to have enough jobs that each student could have a new job every other week. Okay, so this week students one through nine get a new job, and next week students one or sorry, students 10 through 17 get their new jobs. And I was all excited about this. It came up with all the jobs, and we got started. And I had to keep track of, I even had a little checklist and marked off whose turn it was to be what job. And then a couple weeks into it, a student was absent for the whole week and he missed his turn to be line leader, and he was devastated. But switching it up just completely messed up my entire cycle and made more work for me. And then if I really reflected and looked at the other jobs, like the chair monitor who was making sure the chairs were pushed in, who wants that job? Everybody wanted to be the line leader, everybody wanted to be the paper passer, everybody wanted a chance to be messenger. But the other jobs, turning on and off the lights, pushing in chairs, that was not as interesting to them. And it quickly became apparent that only three jobs were being remembered, and the other jobs I was still having to remind kids to do. Pick up the trash, push in their chairs. You get the idea. So in fact, these classroom jobs were not teaching them any kind of responsibility, and it was making way more work for me and classroom management headaches because they were arguing over whose turn it was to be each job. It really was not working as I had intended. And it's okay to admit when things aren't going like you planned. Okay, so I stopped using those classroom jobs because it took forever to rotate through the jobs. Students argued over whose turn it was. Someone always seemed to be disappointed. Kids forgot what their job was. Some jobs lasted 30 seconds, some were way more engaging and fun, and I spent more time managing the jobs than the kids did benefiting from them. They weren't learning responsibility, I was just getting more headaches. The system was creating more work for me instead of working for me. And I needed my systems to be as simple as possible so that I could use them consistently. And let me tell you, classroom jobs were one of the first things I let go of that year. But I did still need kids to help pass things out, to take things down to the office, to be the line leader. So what was I going to do without jobs? Well, that answer was very easy. I watched one of the first grade teachers at my school, and I said, Hey, what are you doing for jobs? She said, Oh no, no, no, nobody's got time for jobs. We do a helper of the day. And it was like, uh, duh, why didn't I think of this? It was such an easy switch. A simple helper of the day. This person is just the teacher's helper. It's my right hand person. If I needed to pass out papers, they helped. If I needed a line leader, they were there. Take the folder down to the office? Perfect. Help with lunch count, their job. If I needed someone to help me lead calendar, that was their job too. They got to read the message of the day. The helper of the day got to do all of the best jobs and the not so fun jobs, but they were the teacher's helper and it was a very important task. How did we choose the helper of the day? Well, we just went in alphabetical order. If you've listened to a few episodes, you know now that I numbered my students alphabetically by their last name. It made everything about my life more easier, and it's how they stood in line too. So they quickly learned the pattern. I called the helper the handy helper of the day. And so I used a hand and I put their name in the middle, and we just flipped over a new hand print each day, and whoever's hand was there was the helper. If the student had been sick or was going to be absent, we just skipped them for that the day. If they came back the next day, they'd get their turn then. If it was a few days, sometimes they'd say, Oh, you'll just get a turn the next time your name comes around. However, you want to handle that, as long as you're consistent with it, um, kids will be fine with it. And I did a helper of the day because it just kept things fun and fresh. And um, like I said, if somebody was sick or absent, we just went back to them or skipped them that cycle and they got to go the next cycle. But that way, about every 20 school days, they were getting a turn to be the helper. If you only do a helper of the week, yes, they get the jobs longer and it's more consistency for you. But I think then it limits like they might not get to be helper again because you only have so many weeks in a school year, depending on how many students you have. So it's something to consider when you're deciding if you want to do helper of the day or helper of the week. And the benefits here are the helper of the day or week gets these leadership opportunities. They get to help you and be the leader of the other students in the classroom, which and did I mention you don't have to keep track of a job chart and managing all of that and who rotates where. It's way easier to manage, it's predictable for students, and it's so, so simple to implement. Because remember, kindergarten students thrive in simple systems with consistency and predictable routines, not complicated management systems. They need to be able to predict what's coming next. And sometimes in those classroom job rotations, it's hard to do that. Now, if you've listened to this and you're thinking, but I love my classroom jobs, they work great for me. That is awesome. Definitely keep using them if they work for you. But if you are sitting there thinking classroom jobs feels overwhelming, or I've tried classroom jobs in the past and it just doesn't work, this is your permission slip to let them go and try a helper of the day instead. If you are thinking about this and other questions this back to school season, wondering what routines, procedures, and simple systems you actually need in kindergarten, then you definitely want to join us inside the first week of kindergarten blueprint. We even include the printable daily helper resources that I used in my classroom so you don't have to recreate them yourself. You can join us live the end of July, July 27th, 28th, and 29th. Or if you're already in school or don't have time to join us live, no worries, you can catch it on demand anytime, even right now, uh, as well as all the printable resources you need to have the best first week ever. So be sure to grab that link down in the show notes. And remember, kindergarten teachers don't need more complicated systems. You need to streamline simple systems because the fewer things you have to manage, the more time you have to actually teach. All right, until next time, have a great week. Thanks for listening to the Kindergarten Toolbox. I'm Amy Murray and I'm so glad you're here. Be sure to check the show notes for all the links and resources from today's episode. For even more tips, tools, and support, head to teaching exceptionalkinders.com or connect with me on Instagram at Teaching Exceptional Kinders. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow along and subscribe to the show and take a minute to leave a review. It helps other kindergarten teachers to find us too. Teaching kindergarten is tough, but you're not alone. Here's to calmer days and more confident writers. You've got this.