JULY 2025
Children often love to take on roles and responsibilities in the classroom. When they have responsibilities, they feel a greater sense of belonging to their learning community, they feel a sense of control within their environment which contributes to a sense of security, they learn skills to work together with peers towards shared goals, they are more willing to cooperate with myself and their peers, they learn about self-help skills and general life skills, they learn skills for organising themselves, organising resources and organising their time, and they experience a sense of accomplishment or success upon meeting their responsibilities.
Each beginning of each school year sees me printing out pictures and labels to make posters for the classroom jobs or responsibilities. I also work out a weekly roster so that, depending on the number of children I have in any given year, each child will have either one or two jobs per week. I use this roster for children aged three to five years. Delegating jobs to the children according to the roster becomes a part of our morning routine before we start our day, and they love it! They get so excited when their name is called for one of the jobs.
The best kinds of jobs that I have found work well are the floor sweeper, the art area monitor, the chair stacker, the line leader, the whiteboard or tech helper, the meal helper, the prayer monitor, the bag or locker area monitor, and the water bottle monitor. Depending on the size of my class, I may use all of these jobs each day, I may reduce the number of jobs on the roster if I have fewer children, or I may double some children up for a job if I have a larger group. In my very small classes, the children usually get two jobs per week. If a child misses out on their job because they were away, or a child is in for a casual booking and is not on the roster, I will try to shuffle children around to ensure that all get a job.
This template that I use allows me to easily rotate the jobs from week to week. This roster is constructed with the days of the week along the top row, and the list of jobs along the left column. The children’s names are entered into the roster based on the different days they attend during the week. The only thing I change from week to week is the list of jobs, and this is how I rotate the roster. For example, if the floor sweeper is job number one and the art monitor is job number two in week one of the term, then in week two of the term, the floor sweeper becomes job number two and the art monitor is job number three.
The jobs and responsibilities are displayed on a poster in the room, visible from the group time area. Children’s names are printed on tags that are laminated and have a Velcro dot attached. The name tags are applied each morning according to the roster, and then removed each afternoon. The children typically remember what their job is, and remember to do it, because they are usually so excited to do it! If they forget, however, either myself, my assistant or another peer will remind a child of their job when the time comes.
Very little resource preparation is needed on a day-to-day basis for the children to complete their jobs. All of my room resources have their place, and the children know where they are, so they can access them to complete their job or responsibility.
This structure of assigning children jobs and responsibilities may take a bit of teaching at the beginning of the year, but once the children become familiar with the style of roster, what is expected of them, learn where any resources are that they need, and understand that they only get a turn of having a job once or twice a week, then they are able to complete their jobs enthusiastically and autonomously most of the time. Based on the results I see among the children and their personal growth, I would highly recommend introducing jobs and responsibilities for children aged three to five years, on a daily basis.
Leave a Reply