Routine is really important routine will help the classroom be independent and run itself and will reduce anxiety so kids can focus on learning.
~ Zeba from Episode 101 of the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
At this point in the year, it’s tempting to shake things up, but don’t ditch your routine just yet.
In today’s episode, I’m sharing why sticking to consistent routines is one of the best things you can do for your students right now. We’ll talk about how routines help kids feel safe, reduce anxiety, and build independence. And how you can stay motivated, even if you’re tired of singing the same songs every day. (Trust me, I’ve been there!) Your students thrive on routine and your future self will thank you.
In this episode I share:
- Why routines help kids feel secure and focused
- How to support students through schedule changes and transitions
- What to do when unexpected changes (like fire drills or indoor recess) throw things off
- Tips for using visual schedules and gentle reminders to build independence
- Why your students aren’t actually bored and how to remind yourself that consistency is a good thing
Learn More:
- Effective Classroom Setup: Balancing Play, Learning, and Routine ~ Ep. 94
- Teaching Self-Regulation Skills Through Everyday Routines ~ Ep. 80
- Balancing Curriculum and Development: Teaching with Young Learners in Mind ~ Ep. 62
- Strategies for Supporting Neurodivergent Students in the Classroom ~ Ep. 59
- How to Have Smooth Transitions in Kindergarten ~ Ep. 51
Resources:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe. On today’s episode, I want to talk about routine and why it is so good for kindergarten to keep our routine. At this point in the year, you know, you’ve been teaching routines non-stop and you might start to be thinking, okay, I’m maybe getting a little bored or maybe that will come later in the year. But before that happens, I want to talk about why it’s good to keep our routine and how to support kids with routine in the classroom. So let’s get into it.
You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:28] So first, why routine is so helpful. Kids thrive on repetition and predictability. Having a structure of the day, having routines in the day that kids can trust will happen every single day helps them feel safe, helps them helps reduce anxiety, especially for kids with disabilities or with trauma backgrounds.
[1:58] Having routines that they can trust is critical. But having routines that are the same every day or every week also help kids feel confident in trying things out. You know the saying kids can’t learn if they don’t feel safe, right? And part of that is that feeling of routine where they know, for example, that they’re not safe.
[2:24] Every day at morning meeting, you are going to ask kids to greet each other. And they might not feel safe or confident trying that out every, you know, the first couple of times. But eventually, as the year goes on, they might start dipping their toes in. They might greet someone with their words instead of just a wave. They might start to respond with a piece of news to share if that’s, you know, the greeting you’re doing. Like every Monday I do, what’s the news? And there will be kids who will say no news every single time until eventually they start to share news. Because that routine of every, I can predict every Monday, Ms. McKibbin is going to say, what’s the news? And I’m listening to the kids say it and I’m observing them and I’m absorbing it all. Over time, they start to feel safe and comfortable and okay trying something out. okay, like I said, dipping their toes in and giving it a try. So that’s a really key, important part of learning, of feeling safe to try in learning.
[3:32] It also gives, routine also gives the kids structure for their day. And so when they know what to expect will come next, they can really focus on the learning that’s in front of them. So if they know, okay, this reading lesson is not going to be the whole day. It’s not going to be forever.
[3:51] I know that when this reading lesson is done, we will get to do a movement break or we’ll get to move on to math. And I really like math or whatever it is like that helps kids to be able to focus on what they’re doing right in front of them, what they’re doing right now, because they know that coming up, they know what will happen. Think about a time when you didn’t know what was going to happen, like on your first day at a new work or some event that you went to but you were a little nervous because you didn’t know what to expect. You spend your whole time thinking about like, well, I wonder what’s coming next. Or maybe this is just me. But like I spend the whole time being like, well, what’s coming next? If I’m traveling with my husband and his family and no one has a plan, I do not like that. I do not like not having a plan. I want to know what are we doing next and, you know, what’s the whole day going to look like so I can figure out what I’m packing and what I’m wearing. And, you know, I like to know what’s coming next. Kids are the same way. And think about how distracted I was that I’m constantly thinking about what’s coming next, but I can’t focus on what’s happening right in front of me. Think about how that is like for kids when they’re learning. They can’t really focus on that learning if they’re constantly thinking about what’s coming next.
[5:06] So all of that to say, like all of this, all of these benefits supports kids in reducing misbehaviors. When they have anxiety, when they don’t feel safe, when they’re not sure what’s coming next, when they’re not able to focus on their learning, they do have behavioral disruptions. So having a consistent routine helps avoid those behaviors. So how do we maintain and establish consistent routines? The first thing that you should have is, and I’ve said it before, a visual schedule somewhere in the classroom. This is a must, a must have. Kids need to be able to see what’s coming in their day, what to expect. That way, also, when they say, well, when is lunch? I’m hungry. You can say, well, look at the schedule, right? You know, you don’t have to be constantly answering those questions. You’re teaching them to be independent of, I can look at the schedule and find out what’s coming next, right? But every day, I go over the schedule.
[6:04] And, you know, this is helpful because our schedule does frequently change with our specials and all these things. So it’s important to go over what is the schedule for the day. Now, when I teach summer school, our schedule never changes, ever. But you better believe I go over that every day. And in my head, I’m thinking, okay, I think it’s obvious at this point. It’s the same schedule. Why am I doing this again? But it’s so important for the kids that I go over it every single day, even when it doesn’t change. They want to hear and see that the schedule is what they expect it to be. And like I said, this benefits all kids, but it especially benefits kids with disabilities, kids on the spectrum, kids with a trauma background. So this is also a great opportunity to discuss if there are changes in routine.
[6:55] So if there’s something on the schedule that’s not normally on the schedule, if there’s a switch with an activity on the schedule, anything that might be, if there’s a special guest coming in, put it on a schedule and talk about it at the beginning of the day when you have your morning meeting. That way kids can be prepared for what’s coming. If there’s a big change, like you have, let’s say, an assembly after lunch, and that’s normally never the case. before you go to lunch, remind kids about this so they aren’t caught off guard.
[7:26] Remember, so remember after lunch, we’re going to go to lunch in a few minutes. And remember that after lunch, we have an assembly. We are going to see a presentation of blah, blah, blah. And when there’s a big change, the more information you can give, the better. So kids can mentally start preparing for it. Again, this helps all kids, but it is especially important for those kids with big behaviors, with a trauma background to have the most idea in their head of what’s happening. So saying like, we’ll be going to an assembly. It’s a presentation with an author. They’re coming to read us their book and they’re going to talk to us about how we can be authors too. We’ll be there with kindergarten, first grade and second grade. So that’s all happening after lunch. And then after that, we’ll go back to our regular schedule after stuff, something like that. So that way the kids can be prepared. That’s how I would address a change in routine. Now, occasionally, occasionally routines change without having much warning. Fire drill, for example, you can’t plan for those.
[8:35] But let’s say that one big change is maybe the weather, too, of like indoor or outdoor recess. So you say, OK, the weather looks nice. We’ll probably have outdoor recess. And then they call indoor recess because maybe they heard thunder on the radar or there’s a coyote on the playground that’s happened to us. And then you have to have indoor recess. And so it is important to just say to the kids and be upfront about like, I didn’t know this change was happening. But sometimes we have to be flexible. And it’s not what we wanted, but we’re going to go with the flow today and hope that the next recess is back to normal, is back to outdoor recess. And knowing ahead of time the kids that are really going to struggle with that, maybe talking to them before you talk to the whole group is important.
[9:24] Or giving them a choice like, hey, I’m going to have to tell the class that we’re unfortunately inside for recess today. But I was wondering if you wanted to play in here or if you wanted to play in this other room with this other teacher or if you wanted to get a special toy from this other class to play with some kind of choice over the matter is going to help when there’s an unexpected change right or let’s take the fire drill for example you can’t really you do this in the moment you go out of the building you have your fire drill like you get out safely and you’re all quiet but then when you come back, now your schedule’s all off because that took up all of your writing block, let’s say. And now it’s snack time, but all the kids have all their writing stuff on their desk and they didn’t get to write at all. Talk to them and say, that fire drill really took up all of our writing time. So we’re going to have to be super flexible. And when I say flexible, I love moving my hand like a wave in the ocean, like ups and downs, like a roller coaster. And so I do that with the kids. We’re going to have to be flexible because now we don’t have any writing time. We have to get right to snack.
[10:31] But maybe there’s some flexibility here. Maybe you can say if you really wanted to write something down, you can write it while you’re eating snack. Or if you really wanted to do writing, maybe you can do it at rest time. Like find a time to adjust for that change.
[10:46] And they probably won’t take you up on it, but it’s just nice for them to know they have that option. The other thing that you can do to support routines, and this is not necessarily like a change in routine, But even if you’ve gone over your schedule for the day, it’s good to remind kids of what’s coming next when you’re transitioning. You know, I’ll say, five more minutes, and they say, five more minutes. And then I can say, after writing, remember, we’re going to lunch. Depending on the class, I see how they’re doing. And if they’re getting our routine, I don’t necessarily do that every time. But I do like to, and there’s a big transition, like just a reminder, after we clean up, we’re going out to recess. I’ll do something like when I say my magic words, we’re going to clean up. After you’ve cleaned up your table, you are going to get dressed and then line up inside so you’re ready for recess. Like you’re going to get your jacket on. That’s what I mean by get dressed.
[11:47] And so that reminds kids about what’s coming next. But I don’t do it too early where that’s all they’re thinking about. I don’t want to do it at the five-minute mark, I’m realizing as I’m saying this now, because I don’t want them to be distracted by, oh, Reese’s is next, Reese’s is next. I want them to think about, I need to wrap up this writing that I’m doing. And in a few minutes, the time that I have on this project is coming to an end. And that’s really important for kids that’s, again, kids on the spectrum.
[12:14] Kids with a trauma background, to know like a change is about to happen. It’s really important to have those transitions. You can even give them a personal sand timer so they can visually see, If that’s something that they really struggle with, especially if it’s a preferred activity like playtime, so that they can see like, OK, this is exactly how much time you have left before we wrap things up. And then try to honor the time on the timer and not like your own clock. Right. If you are giving them the sand timer, try to honor that. If you can do all these things to support routines, you will see the kids being able to be really independent over their learning. And over the course of the year you will get to see them the classroom running itself you’ll get to see them cleaning up without you having to remind them of every little step of how to clean up or how to start center time on their own or get started with reading whatever it is if you do the routine enough they will be able to start doing it independently and that will really help with your classroom management with your mental health because it’s nice when you can take care of other things and you don’t have to worry about going over every little step. So right now, when you’re listening to this, when this is live, you are still in the I’m teaching every little routine. I’m reinforcing every routine. But trust me, it’s better. And when you stick to the routines, it pays off by the classroom running itself later on.
[13:43] So all of this to say, sometimes we as teachers think we have to keep it engaging. We have to keep it exciting for the kids. And so the teachers want to change things up. They want to change up how they do things or they want to do a special activity. And every now and then that’s all well and good. But the more that we stick to routines, the better is for the kids. And so they’re not just a little bit of a permission for you like to that you don’t have to do all that stuff that keeping the keeping the routine the same for the kids is beneficial for them and they are not the ones who are bored you might be the one who is bored but they are not bored i literally sing the same exact weather song days of the week song every single day for my students and by the end of the year you better believe i am getting bored i don’t want to sing that song anymore but the kids have no problem with it. They are not bored. And if I start changing it up just to spice things up because I’m bored, it’s going to cause confusion for them. They’re not going to be able to do it independently.
[14:51] They’re going to get distracted. They’re going to start talking to each other. You’re going to have misbehaviors. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it. So even when I do like a special theme day or something, like I keep our schedule outlined the same, right? So there might be a different activity, but like they’re still doing reading at their reading time. We’re still starting with morning meeting that’s a key part of maintaining that routine feeling is starting day with morning meeting that is something that all I want all my kids to depend on that we will do that every day.
[15:21] So to recap, routine is really important. Routine will help the classroom be independent and run itself and will reduce anxiety so kids can focus on learning. And the kids are not the ones who are bored. And it’s actually really good for them to keep routine the same. And when there are changes, face it head on, let the kids know, be proactive about it and give as much warning and information to those changes as possible. Awesome. Thanks so much for listening in and for celebrating last week, my 100th episode of the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. It’s an honor to be here with you. If you are struggling with your routines, or how to structure them, or how to support kids with transitions, reach out, let me know. I have a lot of resources that I can help, and I also offer one-to-one coaching. We can go through those routines and make sure they’re manageable for you and the students. So reach out anytime. I can’t wait to hear from you.
[16:23] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.