Teaching is one of the most important professions, especially because teachers impart knowledge to different growing individuals so they could use it for their chosen career in the future. It is no easy task too, as it takes plenty of effort to teach different people in a room. Therefore, some have devised some clever teaching strategies, classroom hacks, and many more that makes teaching even more efficient and effective for everyone.
A tried and true trick to help a student calm down is to give them a bunch of pencils to sharpen.
Make your own tissue box by using a candle holder and toilet paper. You just take out the cardboard from the center and pull the paper out. Genius, isn’t it?
3. “I Wish My Teacher Knew…”
Have a jar on your desk along with some sticky notes throughout the year, so you can always find out something new about your students.
Everyone knows that kids love to waste glue sticks! So next time just soak sponges in glue and have them use those instead!
5. Cell Phone Parking Spot
Provide a spot where your students can safely “park” their phones and return them at the end of the lesson in exchange for the respective number.
Always set the sules of the class at the beginning of the year and be consistent throughout.
Cut down on plastic in your classroom by using highlighting pencils instead of highlighting markers.
Use a vertical pocket organizer to save room and to make it easier for you to see how many homeword sheets/notebooks you have collected.
Toothbrush cases are a great idea for those of you who want to make sure kids won’t be losing their pencils all the time.
Hand out quiet toys to students who need to fidget with something in order to concentrate.
Recycle cereal boxes by making board games and other lesson materials out of them.
Stay extra organized by making your own teacher’s tool kit where you can keep all your stuff and know exactly where to find what.
13. Questions Parking Lot
Reserve a spot where students can stick notes with questions and feedback, so that you know who hasn’t understood something or has questions.
Keep paintbrushes in a great condition by soaking them in hair conditioner. That should work!
If you’re tired of giving hard-working students the plain old stickers, you can level up your game by giving them a set of “smart beads” to wear for the day.
Keep a bunch of activities that early finishers can do, so that they don’t get bored.
You can create individual storage space for each student, by arranging carbboard magazine holders as shown in the picture.
Repurpose your old straw dispenser and turn it into a pencil dispenser. Doesn’t it look fancy!
If you think whiteboard erasers are too boring for your classroom, you can use fuzzy socks instead!
Nail polish a great way to mark pairs of electronic deviced, such as USBs and mouses. It makes sense!
Do students raise their hands or call your name for various reasons and interrupt the lesson? Here’s an idea of silent hand signals you can teach them at the beginning of the school year.
If some children still haven’t figured how to properly hold a pencil, you can ask them to hold a cotton ball or small rubber between their ring and pinky fingers.
Marker sets can be easily kept together if you use duct tape around them. That’s a good idea!
Use dry-erase paper covers to save printing paper, plus time and money. This way you can use the same exercise many times with different groups.
Always keep losing your stickers? Try a binder ring, hang them on the wall and make sure you never lose them again.
Use laminate strips and highlighter tape to make reading guides that will help your students focus on what they’re reading.
This is such a cool palette you can make with materials you usually have on hand. Also, it tends to make less mess!
Instead of using butcher paper as the background of your bulletin board, you can use fabric. This will help you save paper and it will last longer.
A trick to help you lose fewer pencils during the school year is to create an arrangement with magnetic clips in which students sign out a pencil, return it, and erase their name. Simple, right?
Tap lights are a great idea to indicate when it’s okay for students to interrupt. You can also use red and green ones so that they act like traffic lights (red: you can’t interrupt; green: you can).
Kids can earn class dollars if they behave themselves, which they can use to buy prizes from the class store. Kids who misbehave can be asked to give class dollars back to the teacher.
Use some old trophies as temporary rewards for hard-working students. See how motivated they will be.
Organize the photocopies and materials you’ll need for each day of the week in a classroom keeper.
Use an old coffee pod holder as a stand for play-doh. Very practical and useful!
Have kids draw on a blackboard using water. This way they practice their fine motor skills and they don’t make a mess.
Old file sorters can work just as well as an ipad mini station. It’s so easy.
37. No More Annoying Sounds
Just attach open tennis balls to the ends of chairs and desks and you’ll never hear the annoying squeeching sounds again!
We all know that when we write on plastic, it tends to go away very easily. So here’s a trick: seal the ink using clear nail polish.
This might not stop all students from giving you stuff, but at least you’ll know where to put it.
Keep a box of golf pencils and hand out to students who have forgotten theirs. They’re inexpensive and you won’t mind losing them, plus students tend not to keep these ones.
During the flu season, you can buy an under-shelf tissue dispenser so that kids don’t touch the tissue boxes and spread the germs.
This teacher made a punch-it wall, so that when a student collects a number of stickers, they punch one of the cups and get their incentives. See how you can make it
here.
Everyone knows glitter is a teacher’s nightmare! Next time try using salt shakers to control the sprinkling.
Bucket seats make for extra storage room which teachers always need! Plus, they provide fancy seating!
Phones shouldn’t be out during class, everyone knows that. For those phones that are out without permission, there’s the phone prison!
46. Individual Phone Prisons
Dollar-store zip-loxk pencil bags can be used as individual phone prisons, where students can put their phones themselves to make sure they won’t be using them during class.
Therapy animals can work wonders with your students on tough days. You should definitely try it if you have the chance.
48. Easily Group Students
Use colorful stickers to group students at each desk. This way, when you want a number of students to do something, you can call them by color.
By using velcro you ensure you won’t lose your markers, at least not as often as you used to. Plus, if the tip points downwards, they will last longer.
50. Vertical Storage Space
A shoe organizer seems ideal to store the kids’ headphones or anything really. The possibilities are endless.
51. Learning about the body
This woman has a very clever idea of letting her students learn more about the anatomy of a human person. She would either dress up with a skeletal, muscular or even a digestive system costume so it would be easier to map out than looking at a screen.
52. Keeping the interest in chemistry high
Learning chemistry is complicated, and this professor knows how his students feel about it. To spice things up, during his discussion with methamphetamine, he dresses up as Heisenberg from the show Breaking Bad to keep his student’s interest in the topic.
Whether you are a teacher or a student, these might just help you look for a better angle for effective and efficient learning. Hopefully, these would help you pave the way to a successful school year.
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Teaching is one of the most important professions, especially because teachers impart knowledge to different growing individuals so they could use it for their chosen career in the future. It is no easy task too, as it takes plenty of effort to teach different people in a room. Therefore, some have devised some clever teaching strategies, classroom hacks, and many more that makes teaching even more efficient and effective for everyone.
