classroom jobs (primary grades)

do you assign each kid a job for the week/month or do you only give maybe a handful of students a job for the week?

I co-taught the past few years and we gave each kid a job every week (however, most of them were jobs we never ended up using)

THis year Im teaching on my own and Im thiking of just giving out 5-8 jobs and rotating them week to week with different students.

What do you do?

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

i gave everyone a job when i taught pre-k bc if they didnt get a job they would get upset. :) when i did 2nd grade, i just assigned about 6-8 kids jobs that i really wanted done and made sure to be very careful about rotating fairly. they notice!

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

Every student gets a job that they pick (order of students to choose picked randomly)and they have that job for 2 months (Sept/Oct...Nov/Dec etc) They become "experts" at that job and that way I always remember who does what when I need them.
They then "train" the new job holders when we switch. This is 2nd grade BTW

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

I saw this on a blog this week and think it's a cute idea I want to use this year.....


Just tailor to the amount of children you have and what jobs you use in your room. You can even make it very cute if you type and add images.

Message edited 8/5/2011 1:21:01 PM.

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

I have a Table Captain for each table and then 2 of each of the following (usually 1 boy & 1 girl): Messengers, Line Leaders, Teacher's Helpers, and "Spoons" (they move the magnetic spoons back after students make their lunch choice) so that's 12-13 jobs in all (some years I have 4 tables, some years 5 ).

This is for kindergarten and I change jobs at the beginning of every month.

eta: I used to switch every Friday but I like doing it monthly better.

Message edited 8/5/2011 4:21:21 PM.

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

Last year was my first year in 1st grade. We switched jobs every week. Every other week, a student would have a job and it worked out really nicely. I only had 17 students. I plan to do the same thing this year since it worked out so well.
When I taught 4th grade, we switched jobs monthly.

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

We don't have "jobs", we have "helpers"...we have 2 helpers each week that do all the big jobs we have. They are the line leaders, mail and lunch count helpers, and do all of the other little jobs we can come up with during the week.

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

I teach 1st grade.

I used to give each child a job (some were shared jobs) that I switched every week, but I found it was rather pointless over time. This past year I chose a "star of the week" who was the calendar person, line leader, paper hander outer (like that name? ), etc. I found it SO much more useful and meaningful.

In the beginning of the school year, the star changed everyday ("star of the day"), and once I went through everyone, I changed it to weekly. I really like how it worked out, and I will be doing it again this year!

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

I teach 1st grade and this year I made a "top frog" chart and everyday whoever the top frog was would pick a helper and they would do all the jobs for the day. Line leader/caboose, messenger, paper passer, etc. Then I had a cafeteria chart because each class needed 2 table washers and 2 sweepers, that I would change weekly.

Re: classroom jobs (primary grades)

i have about 15 jobs and several "alternate" slots (for kids to fill slots of kids that are absent).

i change it once a month on the first day of the month. some jobs are used more than others but they are all used.