Teacher Assistant of the Week

At my school we have a span of grades K-8.  I still don't think the middle school grades get the same experience as others in the city, but that's for another day...

Since our kids only see 2 content teachers (myself and my coteacher), I teach Math and Science and my coteacher teaches ELA and Social Studies to both our homerooms.

One of the ways we still get our kids to help us out in the classroom is having a Teacher Assistant of the Week.  This way we don't have to assign a million and one jobs for the classroom to our kids like the elementary part does, but our kids still learn a bit of responsibility week by week.  And, the Teacher Assistant of the Week gets to help out in both rooms.  When I have my coteacher's homeroom, all I have to do is ask who the assistant is, and they are also my assistant when I have that class in front of me.  It alleviates the constant picking and choosing students to help out with things that need to be done around the classroom (passing out books, getting mail from the office, etc.)

So for this coming school year, I made a checklist, laminated so kids can use it everyday, for the morning routines they have to help me with, and the afternoon routines they must complete before the end of the day.  I didn't have the checklist this past year, and my kids were pretty good with getting things done (until we got towards the end of the year), so I'm hoping the checklist will be a good addition to the classroom routine this year.

Here's a picture of the checklist that I have on a clipboard.  I'm going to attach a white board marker so they can literally check off everything they've done, and just erase with a tissue.

One of the jobs the Teacher Assistant of the Week has to do is record assignments for those that are absent.  So I made this folder (the Make Up Assignments page is from Pinterest...thanks, Laura Candler)  and inside are copies of the Make Up Assignments page.  I tend to tell the Teacher Assistant of the Week to not fill one out until the end of their first class, since many of my students come to school late.  But the assistant is responsible for getting the assignments organized for the person who is absent.

I also made a back to include more spaces in case a student is absent for more than one day.