How to End the Dreaded “I’m Done, Now What?” Question FOR GOOD!
You know how there are some innocuous things that just make your blood absolutely boil for almost no reason? One thing for me is when I student yells in line, “YOU CUTTED!”. I can be in a great mood and the minute someone shouts that, I instantly get irritated and have to take a deep breath.
What are your pet peeves in the classroom? We want to hear about them!
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As much as I can’t stand “You cutted”, there was one thing that drove me even crazier than that. My ultimate teaching pet peeve. My first few years of teaching, I absolutely couldn’t STAND when students asked me
“I’m done, now what?”.
You might have noticed that I wrote that in the past tense. That’s because after multiple years of being frustrated by students, I finally found a solution to students asking this question.
ENTER EARLY FINISHER PACKETS!
This idea first came to me in November. My teammate and I decided to create a packet of fun, November themed work for students to work on after their assignments were complete. We began gathering worksheets we had in files and workbooks.
We created a small packet of activities. The students were excited, but we ran into a few challenges. The first was that some of the activities were simply not extremely engaging. The second was that I wished the activities we had collected had a better mix of academics and fun activities.
That’s when Emmy and I decided to make it ourselves. We sat down and decided what activities our students would find engaging and fun, that would also supplement skills we were working on in the classroom.
In the end, we created a packet for every single month. At the beginning of the month I copy and staple a packet for each of my students. We have created 30 page packets, but you do not need to include all 30 pages! My students literally CHEER when they get a new packet at the beginning of each month. When they are finished with any assignment they know they have two options: read or do your packet.
Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!
You can totally do this yourself and end this annoying question in your classroom as well. Or, if you want to save yourself some time and trouble you can grab our early finisher packets below. We have a version for grades 2-3 and a version for 4-5. We sell them individually or as a bundle! With back to school around the corner, you can save yourself a ton of time this year and countless headaches by grabbing the bundle today!
Much like Ron Swanson, I will not endorse a product unless I truly believe in it and use it. This is an invention that came out of necessity for us. I cannot express enough how much these packets have made my life easier in my classroom. If you take any piece of advice from us, let this be it.
EARLY FINISHER PACKETS ARE A GAME CHANGER!
Let us know if you tried this out! We love hearing from you!
Enjoy!
