Classroom Routines Reset: 5 Ways to Ensure a Smooth Transition Back to School After Winter Break

Hi, friends, happy Monday. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had such a great holiday. And I hope that you are enjoying time with family with friends, I hope that you are getting to rest and recharge.

But I also know that sometimes we just can’t help ourselves. And even if we are on break, it can be hard to step away from our teacher life. I also know that sometimes when we step away, we give ourselves a little bit more clarity and whitespace. And we can think about some of the challenges or things that we want to try to like troubleshoot and fix in the new year.

So there is absolutely no judgment here if you are still in work mode, but I definitely want to encourage you to disconnect at least a little. But it’s also possible. And I hope that this is genuinely the case that listening to my podcast every Monday morning is just part of your routine. I hope it is I love spending Monday mornings with you. And of course, if you’re on break, you want to keep that routine going.

So regardless if this is just part of your routine, or if you are still in teacher mode, I am excited for today’s episode, because I wanted to share some ideas with you that I think are really going to make returning to school in January just a little bit easier and a little less stressful when it comes to behavior.

And I don’t know about you, but I was always shocked. Although after spending so many years in the classroom, I really should never have been shocked. But I was definitely shocked. And at times, I was definitely appalled at the behavior that awaited me when my students returned in January.

I was always so excited to see my kids when they first came back, I missed them, I looked forward to them. I mean, we always had such great behavior and culture and community and clear expectations and a student centered classroom, that is something that I’ve always worked really hard to try to create. And for whatever reason, it’s like the first day back was I feel like always a pretty slow and sleepy day.

But oftentimes by day two or three, it’s like my students had completely forgotten how to do school, it’s like they forgot every expectation. They forgot where things were located. They forgot like how to work independently, you know, they forgot about how to talk to each other or interact with each other.

You know, we always had this sort of like rule in our classroom that we work with everybody, that we were kind to everybody with everybody. And you know, just when we returned from break starting to hear kids say like, why don’t want to work with them, I don’t want to do that, you know, just a lot more behavior that I wasn’t used to seeing first semester would reappear in those first couple of days back.

Even having kids fall asleep, like in the middle of my read aloud or independent reading. And here’s the thing that I started to realize is that this is completely normal. First of all, so if you have experienced this in the past, it’s normal. I think everybody goes through some sort of, I don’t wanna say behavior crisis, but it’s just abnormal behavior, stuff that we are not used to, because students have been away from school for two weeks, teachers have been away from school for two weeks.

And when we go from this, you know, really for the last two weeks, or right now and you’re in the middle of this break, you and your students have a lot more freedom and a lot more flexibility. And it can be really hard to transition all of a sudden into a much more structured environment, you no longer get to wear what you want, you no longer get to sleep in when you want you can eat when you want, you can go to the bathroom when you want, you can’t drink water when you want. There’s just a lot more structure to it.

And so that can be a hard transition for students, it can be a hard transition for teachers. And so knowing that transitioning back into school might be somewhat of a challenge and behavior might be a little bit more spicy when you return. I think it’s important to plan ahead and think about what routines or what parts of your day might students struggle with. And then how can you plan ahead to prevent any sort of like major behavior problem or crisis from arising.

And one of the things that I always just planned on I built in extra time into that first week back, which means I either didn’t plan for a full, you know, if it was for reading, I would cut our independent reading time. If it was math, I might not build in as much independent practice we might not do writing every day, we might not do science or social studies every day.

Whatever it is, we would create more time in our day, to review to practice to re establish those norms to remind students had the expectations and we would actually physically practice a lot of our key routines. And always this whole sort of like slowing down during that first week back paid off in the long run because at the end of that first week, we were reset where we established and we eliminated you know, future behavior problems from popping up either the following week or you know, things that were small to grow into bigger issues.

So, I would definitely encourage you to plan on reviewing whether it is like a routine, you know, like how to line up to go to specials, or how to walk to the carpet, or how to find a partner for turn and talk or how to turn in your work. You know, the idea that sometimes students might even forget to put their name on the paper.

So how to check out books from the library, whatever it is, definitely spend some time and thinking about, okay, what are like maybe pick four to five key routines, or expectations that you want to review with your students when they come back during that first week.

So what I want to share with you, though, are five creative ways that you can review expectations so that way, this is more fun for you and your students. Because let’s be honest, sometimes like, practicing how to line up, that’s not fun for students. And it’s not always fun for for teachers, and especially if we wait until it’s a problem, it is definitely not fun.

So the first sort of tip or suggestion, or the way that you could do this is, first of all, let your students be the ones to reteach the key routines to your class. So rather than you, you know, being the leader of the classroom, let your students take on this responsibility.

And so how I would do this is think about those four to five routines that you want to have your students practice or that you want to review. And on your first day back, you know, let your students either form groups, or you can form the groups and depending on either how many routines you want to review, or how many students you have, maybe your students are working in groups anywhere from three to five students.

And basically, what you’re gonna let students do is each group is going to pick one routine or expectation. And they are going to be responsible for reteaching that expectation, or that routine to the class. And so usually, this is one of the very first things that we did, I would give my students 30 minutes that first day back to, you know, prepare their presentation.

And this is also kind of a nice thing to do sometime during that first day because they get to work with their classmates, it’s not highly academic, there’s a little bit more independence, there’s opportunities for creativity, it can be just an easy thing to ease into that first week back. So I would give my students 30 minutes to prepare for their presentation.

And I would tell them that they had to create an anchor chart and on their anchor chart, they could do a couple of things, one, you know, whatever their routine was, let’s say it was independent reading. And so they’re going to be responsible for re teaching the class how to independently read according to the expectations that we have, you know, at the beginning of the year, we set all those expectations. So they’re reminding students of that.

And so their anchor chart could include things that we’ll talk about what it looks like, what it sounds like, they might include an example of what the routine is and what it is not. So giving an example and a non example. I told them that it’s important that in their anchor chart that they explain why is it important, you know, why is this something that students need to do? And then, you know, also sort of reiterate like, how is it going to help them the second semester, and so all of that information needs to be on their anchor chart.

And then I would have them prepare a little demonstration, and they could do a skit, they could do a model of the right way to do this routine. And they could then do a model of the wrong way. They could provide like an example of again, sort of like a skit type thing, or reenactment, or I guess it would be enactment not a reenactment, if they’re not reenacting anything anyway, sorry.

But it could be an example of, you know, the positive impact, like if you do this routine for the entire semester, this is the positive impact that would come as a result of that, you know, if we line up the first time, for the entire semester, this is how many minutes extra of recess that we would be saving, you know, versus if we don’t line up quickly for recess for the entire semester, we could lose up to you know, however many hours of recess or whatever it is. So have them do some sort of forward thinking as to why this routine or expectation is so important to the class.

And then, you know, once the students have their anchor chart, and they prepared their little demonstration, then you can decide on how and when you want them to present it to the class. You could start every day of the week during your morning meeting with a demonstration, a model a review, you could also do each little demonstration right before that routine gets executed.

So if you have students who are teaching the class, how to, you know, line up to go to the cafeteria, then right before you know, the 30 minutes, right before you go to lunch for you know, the first or second day, have that group give that presentation, if you have a group that is teaching or reminding the students how to do dismissal routine, at the end of the day, have them do that right before so that way you’re having a conversation with your students right before that routine.

So once they’ve done the presentation, then of course you want to do a follow up conversation. And then you know, let the class contribute if the group maybe have missed something, or if they forgot something. But the rest of the class contributes to it. You know, you can again reiterate as a class, the importance of this routine and why we want to get it right the first time why we want to make sure that we’re you know, following the procedures all the time that we’re going to save all of that type of stuff.

So I love sort of putting this responsibility on the students because again, it’s their class community and it’s their class culture. And I think sometimes too, if students are constantly hearing behavior expectations from us, they make it seem like they’re our rules. And especially if you have, you know, the class norms and the rules that your class has come up with, then they’re their rules too.

And their expectations too, you know, and they sort of need to have some ownership and reminding, and just sort of reteaching the importance of them. So, suggestion number one, let your students basically be responsible for all of the re-teaching.

Now, my second suggestion is a little bit silly, possibly, but my students love this, I’ve done this a couple of different years. What you could do is you could bring in that first week back, bring in a new class plant, I said that a class plant or a class pet, I don’t know if you’re planning on getting a pet. And if you don’t want to have a pet or a plant, you could even bring in a stuffed animal, it could be your class mascot. And like I said, you might think this is silly. But I did this with my fourth graders. I did this once in second grade. And I did that a couple years in fourth grade. And it it worked. My kids loved it.

So one year I brought in Fred, he was our class plant, some plant that I had acquired over the holidays. And my students loved him. I literally introduced him as this is our class plant. And when I brought him in, I told my students that this is a new member of our class, and just started the conversation. What do we need to teach Fred? What does Fred need to know about our class in order to be successful?

And just even sort of like having that Springboard open ended conversation opens up the doors to talk about not only behavior and expectations, but also about community and culture and how we interact with each other, and how we encourage each other and how hard we work.

And, you know, surprisingly, my students took this very seriously, obviously, you know, they knew that Fred didn’t really need to know how to line up or how to pack up or how to work with our classmates, but they definitely played along. And it made it just so much more fun for my students to have this plant that they were trying to introduce to the class.

You know, so during that first day, or that first week back, we reviewed everything, but the reason why we reviewed it was for the benefit of Fred, you know, so it would sound something like this. It’s like, Okay, class, we’re about to sit down and do independent reading for the first time since coming back from winter break, what does Fred need to know about how we do independent reading in our classroom?

Or Okay, we’re about to go out to recess for the first time. What does Fred need to know about how we behave and play at recess? What are some reminders, we need to give Fred? You know, he’s never done this before. Where it’s like, okay, we’re about to go to lunch for the first time. What does Fred need to know about how we transition to the cafeteria?

And then of course, Fred joined us everywhere we went, he came out to recess with us, he walked to specials with us, he even got to sit at a table with some of my students at lunch. And they thought that was absolutely great. And he did kind of become like our class mascot, and students would check in with him, you know, how was your first week going? And I think they just thought it was fun. And it was funny, and it worked.

So it’s just a super, really, really easy, light hearted way to review the rules and expectations. So if you want reviewing the expectations to be a little bit more silly or light hearted, try bringing in a class plant or a pet that you could use as a mascot and review the expectations for the benefit of your new class plant. Plus, I always think it’s great, the more greenery we can bring into our classrooms, the better.

The third suggestion is to do a gallery walk. And this one, honestly is going to take a little bit more time and would require a little bit more prep work. So if you’re wanting the easy route, this maybe isn’t it. But this is also a really great inquiry based approach to resetting routines at the start of your year.

So for this one, you kind of need to think about what routines you want to reteach. So again, maybe if it’s like independent reading, having students you know, do a turn and talk, maybe if you even want to reestablish, like what a messy desk looks like, versus a clean desk, you know, thinking about what it is that you want, and then what you have to do is you’re gonna have to collect pictures of the correct way. And you could also collect pictures of the wrong way.

So you’d have to have a picture of a messy desk and a picture of a clean desk, you would have to have a picture of students returning books correctly to the library and incorrectly to the library, you know, a student who is reading independently correctly and incorrectly. And you could do this candidly, so you could try to collect pictures, you know, during the first day or two back and then plan on doing this towards the end of the week.

Or you can even stage the photos. And one of the benefits of if you decide to stage the photos is the rest of your class is going to see you taking photos of the inside of a desk or of a student at the library and they’re going to wonder what it is that you’re doing and that that just sort of builds some buzz or some excitement for the gallery walks.

So once you have your routines figured out, you’ve taken photos that sort of are an example of each routine or expectation, print off the pictures and I would you know, try to at least print them off on a full eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper and stick them to a larger piece of chart paper. And then you could give it a title if you wanted you wouldn’t necessarily have to but you can give it a title you know how to line up how to turn and talk how to return a book to the library, how to keep your desk organized, whatever it is.

And then place the pieces of chart paper with the photos all around the room. And then what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna let students wander around the room, and they’re going to look at each photo. Now while this is happening, I would usually play nice, soft, quiet classical music. Of course, we would have to review the expectations for a gallery walk. This is a routine that we would do in my class regularly.

So this was not new to my students. But you know talk about how if you’re in a museum them how slowly you walk, what our volume is supposed to be how many students can be at a poster at a time, all of those types of things.

But the goal is when students go to a specific poster, and they’re looking at the pictures, you want them to identify what is a habit? What is a behavior, what is an expectation, that is represented in that photo? And, you know, give students a pad of sticky notes. And on their sticky note, they’re going to write basically a label, or a caption that goes with each photo.

And basically what they’re doing is they are going to be writing down then the expectations that you want them to put into place, as evidenced by what we see in the photo. And challenge your students to come up with a new idea that hasn’t been shared. You know, obviously, if it’s something like reading independently, your students are probably all going to say, you know, read the entire time, or keep your nose in the book the whole time, whatever it is.

So see if your students can come up with a new idea that is not already written down on a piece of paper. And then that helps them sort of get really creative and kind of like dig deep into like, what do they see in the photo? What is the expectation represented here?

And this can just be a really fun way, because again, students are up there walking around, it’s a little bit different than you stating the routines and practicing. But the nice thing about it is is because there’s going to be the photos, and then the students are creating the text for each poster, you’re basically creating an anchor chart then for each of your expectations and routines that you can refer to throughout the rest of the semester.

So then as you are returning books to the library, lining up for specials dismissing at the end of the day, you can refer to the anchor charts that your student created with their sticky notes just to review it. So you could do a gallery walk to review the expectations. That’s always a fun way.

And then another example is a three two one. And I talked about a three two one during my episode on exit tickets a couple back and honestly, this idea of like three two one is just a framework, and you can apply it to anything. It’s just super simple. And like I said, it gives you a framework, which means there’s going to be some consistency when you are reviewing your routines and expectations for your students.

So an example of how you could use a three two one to help review and reteach you routines and expectations could look something like this before you do any routine. So before you dismiss for the first day before you line up to go to the cafeteria, before you sit down to do your read aloud quickly do a 321.

And the 321 for routines would be first of all three, ask three students to share important things to remember with that specific routine. So basically, you want to call on three students and have them give three reminders of that specific expectation or routine.

And then two would be let no more than two students ask questions about the routine. And our students are going to have questions, especially if they’ve been away from school, they honestly might forget, you know, maybe they’re silly questions. Or maybe we think, Gosh, we’ve done this so many times for a semester, do they really not know. But creating space for students to ask questions, I think can just allow students to feel like okay, my question is validated.

And maybe their question is, do we have to line up a number order every time we leave the room? Or is it only for specials? Do we have to take our lunch with us to recess? Or can we pick it up on our way back in? You know, what do I do if I forgot the login information for my computer, you know, or for I excel or you know, whatever it is, our students are going to have questions. So create the space for them to ask the questions about the routine or the expectations. You know, what happens if I finished the book during independent reading, you know, let them ask the questions.

And then the one is you give a final reminder of why that routine is important. You know, letting them know that when we transition quickly, we are saving time, which means more time at lunch more time at specialist more time at recess, independent reading is gonna help us grow as readers and hit our reading goals. You know, when we keep our eyes on the speaker during class discussions, it lets that person know that we are paying attention to them. And what they have to say is important. So you sort of give that final, this is why this routine and expectation is important.

So again, before every routine, just quickly do a three two one. And this can be something you could do all semester long. You don’t even have to just like say I’m only going to do this first week back. But this is an easy thing to do. all semester long. If you’re starting to notice a slip in behavior, or just a forgetfulness of expectations. Let three students share important things to remember for that routine. Two questions about the routine. And then you give one final reminder of why that routine is important.

And then my fifth suggestion is a little reverse psychology. This one depending on your class may or may not work. So you just have to think about will this actually work for your students. And you know, what you could basically do is let your students know that you typically start the first week back of winter break by practicing the routines and procedures with your students.

And in the past, you’ve had to spend you know, the whole first day you’ve had to spend time practicing lining up and transitioning to the carpet and just takes up so much of your instructional day. But this year, this class is special. This class is different. This class did such a good job first semester and you really think that they can probably get away without practicing any routines at least that first day back.

And so you know, let them know it’s like I typically do this but I don’t think you guys are going to have to practice And so the goal then hopefully is that they’re like, Okay, yeah, yeah, we don’t have to practice. And of course, you want to orally review the routines, you know, because you guys already know that when we line up, we walk slowly, and we push our chairs, and we stand facing forward. And we don’t you know, you guys already know that. So we don’t need to practice that stuff, right?

You know, and you really just kind of like hype it up. And then, you know, if they’ve made it the first day back then the second day, so you know what, like, I typically have to practice and you guys went all day yesterday, and we didn’t have to practice it all, at golly, I wonder if you can go another day without practicing any of the routines. And then, you know, hopefully, each day, you can maybe keep a tally marker, every day that they have to go without practicing a routine is, golly, this has never happened before, I usually have to practice so many times with my class.

So you kind of just make it a really big deal. You can even turn it into a competition. So if you teach departmentalized, and you teach multiple sections, you could see which section can go the longest without having to practice or review certain routines, and then just see how long they can go. You know, hopefully, it’s the first day first few days, hopefully, you can get through the first week without practicing.

And I think the important thing with something like this, is knowing that if you sort of set them up to be successful, and say, I don’t think you’re gonna have to practice the routine, you know, you guys are so great. If they do end up having to practice, don’t punish them don’t make them seem like they are failures, just say you know what, like, you guys went three days, and we didn’t have to practice how to line up like, that’s great. We’re just going to take some time right now. And we are going to practice so that way we can get back to not having to practice every day.

So just, you know, the sort of downfall or the thing to be aware of with this is when you’re going for a streak, you know how many days in a row, how many weeks in a row, the reality of it is, is they are little kids and they are human. And at some point, either your patience is going to wear thin, or somebody’s gonna have a bad day, and they’re not going to line up correctly or somebody is going to forget. And then it might be one student that the rest of the class gets mad at because they forgot to push their children or they were having a bad day and the street got ruined.

So don’t make this such a big thing to where, you know, students get upset with themselves or with the entire class when the streak ends, because more than likely, at some point, it will, but just be like great, we made it this far. And now we’re going to practice and then we’re going to get back to, you know, behaving the way that we know how to behave. So the reverse psychology can definitely work depending on the class. So that might be something that you want to try.

So let me quickly review these ideas. So the first thing that you could try is letting your students be the ones to reteach the class, let them come up with an anchor chart, do a little demonstration or a skit and let them completely take charge of the reteaching of key routines and expectations.

The second suggestion was to bring in a new class plant or a class pet and reteach everything for the benefit of the new class addition. Do a gallery walk by letting students walk around and see pictures of the proper way to do things and the improper way to do things and then let them add the labels and the captions for those pictures. You could do a three two one to review all of your expectations. And then the last suggestion was do a little reverse psychology on your students.

So hopefully that makes you feel just a little bit better about returning to school in January because now you have a plan for how you’re going to set up your expectations and you know, reintroduce routines and procedures that some of the smallest things that we do every day, if they go smoothly, that can make all the world of a difference.

Hopefully you found this episode helpful. You guys know I absolutely love hearing from you. So if you end up using one of these strategies, or if you’re planning on it, I would love to hear about it. I would love to hear how it goes. Definitely reach out to me on Instagram at @thestellarteachercompany.

And you still have a week of break left. So I hope after you are done listening to this episode, you turn off your teacher brain and you go read a book or take a nap or go out for a walk or meet a friend for coffee or whatever it is that is restful and enjoyable for you because you definitely deserve it. And I can’t wait to see you back here next week in the new year.