The Core 4 Routines Every Classroom Needs to Run Like Clockwork [Episode 223]

Heidi 0:01
This is episode 223 of Teacher Approved.

Heidi 0:05
You’re listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I’m Heidi.

Emily 0:13
And I’m Emily. We’re the creators behind Second Story Window, where we give research based and teacher approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.

Heidi 0:28
We’re so glad you’re tuning in today. Let’s get to the show.

Emily 0:36
Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we are talking about how to turn your individual procedures into routines that actually stick, and sharing a teacher approved tip for handling your own routines.

Heidi 0:50
Let’s start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick win to help you boost your classroom community. Emily, what is our suggestion for this week?

Emily 0:57
Well, if you haven’t already, take a couple minutes during your prep time today to set up a table to track positive communication for each student. A simple way to do this is to list students’ names down the side and then have a column for each month. Then it’s easy to keep track of which families you’ve reached out to recently. Making communication with families a positive experience and not just something that happens when there’s trouble, can go a long way to strengthening the school home partnership. And I can vouch for this from the parent side, that I hate feeling like every time I see an email from a teacher that something must be wrong. So it would be great if sometimes it’s positive communication as well.

Heidi 1:35
Well, if you like this idea or anything else that we share on the podcast, would you take a second and give us a five star rating? Ratings and reviews are one way that new listeners find us. So really, truly, every rating and review is a huge help to us.

Emily 1:48
So if you’ve been listening for a while, you know that we are big believers, that almost seems like an understatement, huge fans of strong classroom procedures. We have talked a lot about how to design them, how to teach them, using our tell try tally talk method, and how to course correct when they slide.

Heidi 2:07
But, this might be hard to believe, there is actually one part of procedures that we have never tackled. How do you take all of those individual procedures that you have been working so hard to teach and link them into routines that your students can actually follow? And today we’re going to tell you how to make those routines stick without having to turn into the nagging police.

Emily 2:28
So think of a single procedure as one Lego brick. It does what it needs to do, but if you want something that really works for you, like a smooth morning start, you need to snap those bricks together.

Heidi 2:40
I love that analogy, and that’s perfect for your Lego family.

Emily 2:43
Yes.

Heidi 2:45
A routine is a string of procedures in a set order that is done so often that it runs on autopilot. The goal is that the brain doesn’t have to think. It just does.

Emily 2:55
Think back to how you taught your individual procedures. If you used our tell try tally talk method—are we going to start calling that the 4T method? Are we going to, I don’t know, but we’ll stick with tell try tally talk. If you used our method, you clearly explained the procedure and modeled each step. You had your students try it out with your guidance, you tallied how everything went and celebrated progress, and then you talked over what worked, what was tricky, what practice was needed.

Heidi 3:21
That method works beautifully for individual procedures, but let’s dive into how to connect those procedures into a seamless routine. This time we will use a three step process of anchoring, expanding and reinforcing.

Emily 3:35
Wait, but there’s no alliteration in that one.

Heidi 3:38
I feel like we’re really letting the side down. It all has an “ing,” does that count?

Emily 3:41
Okay. That is something, I guess. But you know we love a process, so let’s look at the first step in this new process, which is anchoring. This is where you pick one solid procedure that’s already working well and use it as the foundation for the whole routine. Think of this as the core of your routine. It’s the one thing that, when it’s in place makes everything else easier.

Heidi 4:03
For a morning routine, this might be students unpacking their backpacks correctly. For transitions, it could be having students respond quickly to your attention signal.

Emily 4:12
So the key here is to choose something that’s already pretty solid. Don’t try to anchor a routine to a procedure that is still wobbly. You want your strongest procedure as your foundation.

Heidi 4:22
And here’s where a lot of teachers get tripped up. They try to teach the entire morning routine as one giant procedure. And I have done this myself, but let me tell you friends, that’s like trying to swallow a watermelon whole.

Emily 4:36
Oh, that sounds miserable. That’s gonna end badly. If your morning routine includes coming into the building, entering the classroom, unpacking backpacks, making lunch choices, getting materials, starting morning work, and knowing what to do while waiting for others, that is not one procedure. That’s like seven procedures that have to happen in sequence.

Heidi 4:57
And when you look at it that way, it’s no wonder that your kids are having a hard time following through. They just can’t master that many steps in one go. A good rule of thumb is that if a procedure has more than about five steps or so, give or take, it’s time to break it down. The smaller you can make each task, the more deeply students can internalize it.

Emily 5:17
And when they’re shorter, they’re faster to teach too. So that’s just a little win. Okay, so identify the Keystone procedure in each routine and go all in on making it run like clockwork. That is the first step. Then you can start expanding. This means adding the next logical step in the sequence.

Heidi 5:35
If unpacking backpacks is your anchor to your morning routine, the next step might be making your lunch choice without having to be reminded. That used to kill me every day. How many days are we in school? Anyway, you want that to be automatic, and then you would teach that procedure separately, right? Tell try tally talk, until it’s solid.

Emily 5:54
Then you’d start connecting them in your student’s mind. The students already know how to do each piece, but you’re helping them see how it all flows together. So first unpack your backpack using our five steps, then make your lunch choice using our three steps.

Heidi 6:09
Keep expanding one procedure at a time until you have built the full routine. You know, plan on this taking at least two weeks. That is totally normal, and it’s to be expected.

Emily 6:19
If things start to fall apart as you’re connecting procedures, pull back for a minute and try to pinpoint the issue, instead of plowing ahead, because you want this all done and out of your hair.

Heidi 6:30
Oh, yes, figuring out a problem now will save you from having to deal with it for nine more months.

Heidi 6:36
And that brings us to the final step, which is reinforcing. This is where the magic happens, because this is when your routine moves from something we do because the teacher told us to, to something we just do.

Emily 6:48
This is the point where your routine will either take off or fizzle out. The goal is to train your students brains to run this sequence without you prompting them every step of the way, and that only happens with intentional, repeated reinforcement.

Heidi 7:02
Think of it like teaching kids to tie their shoes. If you’ve ever lived through that, you don’t just show them once and then expect them to do it perfectly every time. You have to practice a lot.

Emily 7:13
Yep, and it’s going to take a lot of practice with your routines too. But that doesn’t mean it has to be drudgery. Have some fun with it. You could set up a bingo board or a tic tac toe board with all of the different procedures that make up your dismissal routine. Every time they complete one part of the routine without needing instructions from you, they get to cross off a square. If they get a bingo or a tic tac toe, they get a small reward, and when the whole board is full, they get a larger reward.

Heidi 7:39
Yeah, we want to make sure that practice doesn’t start feeling like a punishment. Another thing that I like to do with my students was to time them. I would say something like, okay, yesterday, it took two minutes and 28 seconds for everyone to get their notebooks put away and come to the rug. I think we can do it faster. Can we do it in two minutes? Kids love racing. And the nice thing about this is that it can motivate them to kind of push each other to move more quickly, so you’re not the one having to, you know, nudge them along. Let’s let that positive peer pressure work in your favor.

Emily 8:11
If you are doing whole class rewards for practicing routines or anything else, don’t let a few kids ruin it for everyone. If you’ve got one or two little ones with some special behavior challenges, like maybe they’ll go slow on purpose, just because everyone else wants them to hurry, then you can just kind of take them out of the equation.

Heidi 8:27
Right. If all but your two most challenging darlings are at the carpet, count that as a win. Way to hustle, everyone, you made it to the carpet in one minute and 58 seconds. And then when someone raises their hand to point out that Dimitri still isn’t at the carpet, just make it a non issue. You know what, you worry about you and I will worry about Dimitri.

Emily 8:47
Yeah, especially because getting attention for it is probably exactly what Dimitri wants. And it’s just a good reminder that most of our management plans will work for most of our kids most of the time. So put your focus there. You can set up a personalized plan for Dimitri at a different time, but it will only make things worse if we turn him into the class scapegoat. That’s not good for anyone.

Heidi 9:09
And besides making routine practice fun, you can also reinforce your expectations by turning it over to the students. Try assigning helpers for routine checks. Have a materials monitor who reminds classmates about getting their pencils, or a line leader who models proper hallway behavior.

Emily 9:25
That’s nice, because then you’re not having to oversee everything that happens. And when routines start to slide, because they will, especially after a long weekend or a holiday, go back to practicing them just like a sports team runs drills.

Heidi 9:39
Don’t feel like you have failed if you need to reteach a routine. This is something honestly that I struggled with. I used to see this as a failure as a teacher, but it is just a predictable part of dealing with kids. They need repetition, and sometimes you need to refresh those neural pathways to get everyone back on track.

Emily 9:58
Now you likely have dozens of routines needed to make your classroom run, but it’s important that you’re putting a lot of time and energy into streamlining what we call the core four, and these are the routines that truly make or break your school day.

Heidi 10:11
And if you have taught before, you can probably guess what these are, but they are a calm morning start, orderly hallway movement, controlled transitions, and efficient end of day routines. If you can master these four, everything else in your day becomes so much easier.

Emily 10:28
So let’s walk through what it looks like to anchor, expand and reinforce our core four routines. And we’ll kick things off with a calm morning start.

Heidi 10:36
For your morning routine, your anchor might be getting the backpack procedure down. Once that’s solid, you expand it with lunch choice, then getting materials, then starting morning work. Each step gets taught and practiced separately before you try to link them.

Emily 10:50
When it comes to reinforcing your morning routine, visual supports are your best friend. Post the steps of each routine where students can reference them, or where you can send students to check if they’ve forgotten something.

Heidi 11:02
Yeah, you definitely want to outsource the work of keeping kids on track as much as possible. So let a display help you out. You could make a chart or project slides each morning with the steps that you want students to follow. I was very analog. I used sentence strips and magnets to put them on my board because I didn’t want to have to write it out every day.

Emily 11:20
Yep, I did the same thing, and it definitely does not need to be fancy. So just make sure you’re posting them where kids can see them every single day, even in the middle of May, and that they’re going to know exactly where to look each time. It’s always going to be in the same place.

Heidi 11:34
And if they ask you what they’re supposed to be doing, point them to the display, so they get in the habit of checking that instead of turning to you for the answers.

Emily 11:42
Exactly.

Heidi 11:43
Morning routines have to run without much teacher input because you’re busy handling your own routine of getting the day started. Those posted steps give kids a way to stay on track without needing you to prompt every single thing.

Emily 11:56
If you want a deeper dive, maybe the deepest of dives, on morning routines, check out our three part Morning Routine series, which is in episodes 93, 94 and 95 where we talk about how to set up your own morning routines, as well as your students.

Heidi 12:13
For the next in our core four routines is hallway movement, and you might anchor this one with the signal to line up. Then you can expand to walking without talking, then how to walk while you’re carrying supplies, and then what to do when you arrive at your destination.

Emily 12:27
Reinforcing your hallway routine can be a lot of fun. So try announcing that you’ve chosen a mystery walker. If this student remembers your procedures as you travel to your destination, they’ll get a prize, and it’s easier to watch this if you like our strategy for walking at the back of your class instead of at the front.

Heidi 12:44
That does make it simpler, or you can get real good at walking backwards.

Emily 12:47
Yes, you know, both are good skills to have.

Heidi 12:50
The prize for the mystery walker can be as simple as a high five or a sticker. It’s the mystery of it all, not the prize that is going to be most influential on getting your students to meet your expectations. And another fun idea is called line freeze. Ashley from Rainbow Skies for Teachers, shared this with us back in episode 120.

Emily 13:10
Oh, and you should definitely go back and listen to that so you can hear it in her delightful Australian accent. But basically it’s a bit like red light, green light. You lead your line down the hall normally at the front of the line, but every once in a while, you flip around and look at the kids. Their goal is to freeze in place as soon as you turn.

Heidi 13:27
That is a really fun game, and it’s perfect for the hallway because it can be done silently. Ashley says that she has done it with kids from kindergarten to sixth grade, and that they all enjoy it. So give that one a try if you want to add a little whimsy to your hallway routine.

Emily 13:41
And go back to check out episode 89 if you want even more hallway tips.

Emily 13:45
But for now, let’s look at how to handle your transition routines. A good place to start here is by anchoring your attention signal. When that’s solid, expand into listening for all the directions before they start moving, cleaning up workspaces, then getting materials for the next activity, and then transitioning to the new location quickly.

Heidi 14:04
And we did another three part deep, deep dive in episodes 48, 49 and 50. This one happened to be on transitions this time because, as you may have noticed, they are tricky, and they can eat up a lot of your learning time. So revisit those episodes, and also check out episode 160 if you want tips for our final core routine, dismissal.

Emily 14:26
This one is hard because you are so tired by this point in the day. So do what you can to automate this routine as much as possible. You could anchor it with your procedure for tidying up desks, then expand to getting take home materials, then packing backpacks and then getting ready for dismissal.

Heidi 14:43
The end of the day is a great time to add in some student ownership as reinforcement. Besides regular class jobs like sharpening pencils, you can assign students to hand out papers, pass out lunch boxes, check that everyone cleaned under their desk, and really, anything else that the kids are capable of doing, make them do it.

Emily 15:00
For sure, don’t take it on yourself to do all of the work. And the beauty of this approach is that once these routines are solid, your classroom really does start to run like clockwork.

Heidi 15:09
Now this does take a lot of time and energy and intention. I want to be clear about that, because we know how much work this is, but we promise solid routines are worth it, even if they’re not your favorite thing to teach.

Emily 15:23
I know, no one goes into teaching because they love procedures. Although maybe we do. Do we? We talk about them a lot, maybe we do.

Heidi 15:30
I didn’t start out loving procedures, like, I got there once I saw what they could do for me.

Emily 15:34
That’s I was gonna say. I think we love procedures because we love what they give you as a teacher. And obviously, no student says their favorite part of school is your efficient dismissal routine.

Heidi 15:44
But it would be nice if they pointed that out. But it’s procedures and the routines that they create that are going to make the good parts of teaching, the stuff you like, possible. They enable you to be the kind of teacher you want to be. They’re what create consistency so students feel safe and know what to expect. They prevent problems by minimizing opportunities for kids to test your limits, and they free you up to focus on your students instead of logistics.

Emily 16:10
So let’s wrap up with a quick recap of how to turn procedures into routines that stick. First, anchor your routine to one solid procedure that’s already working well, then expand by adding one procedure at a time until you’ve built the full sequence. Finally, reinforce the routine as a whole, not just the individual steps.

Heidi 16:30
Focus on your core four routines—morning start, hallway movement, classroom transitions, and end of day. These make or break your classroom flow. So look for opportunities to reinforce your expectations, so students will want to meet them.

Emily 16:45
And remember that this will take time. Plan on at least two weeks for the basic structures to stick, but there will still be a period of watching and reinforcing before it becomes truly automatic.

Heidi 16:56
And we would love to hear how you’re building routines this year. Come join the conversation in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.

Emily 17:04
Now for our Teacher Approved Tip of the Week, where we share an actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and simplify the rest. This week’s teacher approved tip is to create your own routines. So tell us about this, Heidi.

Heidi 17:16
Well, have you ever noticed how satisfying it is when your own personal routines just click? Like when you develop that evening routine where you prep everything for the next day, and then morning you feels like you have gained a superpower. Well, let’s lean into that. This week, pick one routine in your personal life that’s feeling a little chaotic and apply the same anchoring, expanding and reinforcing approach we talked about today.

Emily 17:42
So maybe that’ll be your after school routine, or your Sunday meal prep, or even just how you unwind in the evening. Start with one solid step that’s already working and then build from there.

Heidi 17:53
And we did talk about teacher morning routines as part of our morning routine deep dive. So the ones that focus on teachers specifically are episodes 93, which is your getting out the door morning routine, and episode 94 that’s like, once you get to school morning routine. So definitely check those out. And just like with your students, give yourself time to practice and adjust. Those neuronal pathways need repetition at home, too.

Emily 18:17
The best part is that when your personal routines are running smoothly, you’ll have more mental energy for all of the amazing teaching you want to do.

Heidi 18:25
All right, to wrap up the show, we’re sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily 18:31
I’m giving us credit to the Good Hang podcast with Amy Poehler. Have you listened to this, Heidi?

Heidi 18:36
I haven’t. It keeps showing up in my feed, so I’ve been meaning to, I just haven’t had a chance yet.

Emily 18:40
Same, and I just barely started listening a couple days ago, and it has exceeded my expectations. I think Amy might have been born to be a podcaster, not an actress. I like her as an actress, too, to be clear.

Heidi 18:52
I keep getting ads for her master class on improv, and she’s so delightful. I keep thinking, do I need to take a master class on improv? I don’t want to do improv, but she’s so fun.

Emily 19:03
Be worth it to hang out with Amy. And usually I don’t care to watch video podcasts. I just want to listen to a podcast. But I got fed one of these on YouTube, and I was like, Oh, this is so fun. And so now I just kind of have it on in the corner while I’m working the last few days, and it’s been so fun. And seriously, every episode is genuinely a good hang. And one thing I love that she does is at the beginning of each episode, she does a video chat with someone she knows who also knows her guest for the episode, and then they say good things about the guests behind their backs.

Heidi 19:33
That is so fun!

Emily 19:34
It’s so cute. So like, before she talked to Andy Samberg, she called Seth Meyers, and they talked about him, and like, how they got to know him and what they love about him. And then Seth, like, gave her an idea for a joke to play on Andy. And it was just fun. It was so cute.

Heidi 19:50
That’s such a fun way to introduce a guest.

Emily 19:52
I know, it just felt so, it’s just wholesome and fun, and it just makes me smile. So if you need a mood booster, check out the Good Hang podcast.

Heidi 20:01
Well, I’ll definitely have to try that out, because I’m going to be working for quite a while today.

Emily 20:04
Yeah, pull it up. Start with the Adam Scott episode, because you’re a Parks and Rec-er. So start with that one, even though you haven’t watched Severance, so you won’t get all the Severance talk, it’s still worth it to hear them talk about Ben and Leslie is just so cute.

Heidi 20:19
They’re so good. I do love that. Okay, I’ll definitely have to check that out.

Emily 20:22
Okay, let me know what you think. What’s getting your extra credit?

Heidi 20:25
Well, I’m giving extra credit to the Lady Stacks Ultimate Book Tracker.

Emily 20:30
Ooh, it sounds fancy.

Heidi 20:32
Now, I haven’t been someone who keeps track of my reading, because when I tried, I would get too caught up on how much or how little I was reading, and then it would start to feel like a chore, or that I was being graded and I was failing somehow. So I had to stop doing that. But I kept seeing ads. I’m so susceptible for ads, apparently.

Emily 20:51
Apparently.

Heidi 20:52
But I kept getting ads for this digital reading tracker. And 100% I have to say, I only bought it because I was trying to figure out how this person, Lady Stacks, how she managed to get the images to work well in Google Sheets, because it’s a whole, you get a whole little like library image, but it’s all in Google Sheets. And I have to say, I could not figure it out, because those tabs are locked.

Emily 21:17
Oh, dang it.

Heidi 21:19
But it turns out that it has been fun to play around with just putting in my own reading. So what you do is you type your book titles on one tab and then a little book is added to your cute library picture on the next tab.

Emily 21:30
Oh, cute.

Heidi 21:31
It’s very satisfying. I love seeing my little library grow, and there’s lots of info, like page totals and graphs. I haven’t been on story graph because I know a lot of people use that instead of good reads, so I think it might be similar to that. But I don’t know that you get to make a cute library in story graphs.

Emily 21:46
I bet not. And I the reason I haven’t switched to story graph is I don’t think it’s free, and I don’t want to pay.

Heidi 21:52
Oh, that’s annoying.

Emily 21:53
Well, not, I’ll pay for something. I just don’t want to pay continuously for a tool. I could be wrong, though. The people listening may be like, No, it’s, you don’t have to pay for it. I have no idea. I should have probably checked that before I made that statement, but it sticks in my head that that’s why I didn’t switch over, was like, Oh, I don’t want to pay for it.

Heidi 22:10
That’s good to know. Well, I did have to pay for the book tracker, but it has been fun. I thought, Oh, I could make a new sheet for each year and have my little library just built up, so.

Emily 22:20
That’s so cute. I’m definitely gonna check it out. I do use Goodreads, but there isn’t an easy, satisfying way to, like, see everything you’ve read. It’s kind of utilitarian. And I also get stressed out in Goodreads about the reviews, because I feel I overthink the stars, because sometimes, well, I really enjoyed this. So it’s like a four star, but really it’s the writing’s not that great, the story’s not that great. It’s probably more like a three star, but I liked it. So, you know, I just spend too much effort on that. Plus, I feel so guilty ever giving anybody.

Heidi 22:52
I know it’s hard.

Emily 22:53
Like, less than, yeah, I feel bad every time I give even a three star. I’m like, Oh, I’m such a jerk. So.

Heidi 22:59
Well, now you can rate lowly in private. No one will ever see it.

Emily 23:03
There we go. Okay, I’ll check it out.

Heidi 23:06
And there’s a link in the show notes if anyone else wants to check it out.

Heidi 23:09
That’s it for today’s episode. Remember our three steps for connecting your individual procedures into smooth running classroom routines, and then you can try out those same steps to your own routines.

Heidi 23:22
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I’m Heidi.

Emily 23:26
And I’m Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an episode.

Heidi 23:33
You can connect with us and other teachers in the Teacher Approved Facebook group. We’ll see you here next week. Bye for now.

Emily 23:39
Bye.