When my students would prep their own folders at the end of the day, it involved putting papers into their folders. This means I wasn’t responsible to pass out any papers at all in my classroom.
I put the responsibility onto my kinders and they handled it beautifully.
Here’s how I set up a paper system in our classroom so that students could get all of the papers they’d need at the end of the day.
Essentially this is how to pass out papers without having to pass out papers.
Let me explain. I used (affiliate) paper letter trays. I usually had four stacked on top of each other.
I picked this number because its how many trays I had. And it fit my shelf space. Yep.
With this setup I could send 4-8 papers home on any given day. I say 8 because I could fit 2 half page flyers onto the same shelf {wink}
Now, I’ll admit that there were often days that I wanted to roll my eyes at the PTA or the office for what felt like a gazillion flyers that “had” to go home. I’ll be perfectly honest with you… on those days I made an executive choice to save a non- time sensitive flyer or two to go home the following day.
Here’s how the simplicity {ahem, magic} of the paper tower works.
My students would get their folder and any papers/items from the day in their cubby and organize them at a work space. Then they’d come and get one of each paper from the paper tower. (Or they’d grab their papers and then go get their folders… which helped too big a line from forming)
If there was only one paper – it was on the highest shelf. Two papers – the top two shelves… and so on.
Then they’d return to their workspace and organize the papers.
I used a bulletin board to show them where their papers went on a daily basis.
Having to only push-pin up one example of each flyer and put the rest onto the paper tower made my time spent extremely efficient.
Now, granted I did check folders (or have student checkers) who would follow through to make sure everyone got their papers and that they were in the correct folder spots so there is a time trade-off.
But, I’d much rather spend my time that way as opposed to stuffing papers into cubbies or folders during a special, prep time or during my lunch! That way I could interact with students, listen to stories, help them find a missing lunch box all while making the process of getting ready to go home happen as opposed to using up my prep or planning time.
If I had work to pass out, a student was highly capable of doing that at a random time during the day.
That’s part of how we did the end of day routine in our classroom and how I “passed” out papers at the end of the day without ever having to pass them out!
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I call my class the Big DOGs and use a dog theme. Each group of desks has a helping hound whose job it is to serve the classmates in their group. So, when it is time to pass out or collect, they either come to me and tell me how many they need or go to the stack and count out that many to pass out. This way, rather than having every student go to the handout trays only one from each group would. The helping hound rotates each day.
Brilliant!