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How to Use Your Planner: Time-Management Tricks for Better Grades (Elementary)

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How to Use Your Planner: Time-Management Tricks for Better Grades (Elementary)

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How to Use Your Planner: Time-Management Tricks for Better Grades (Elementary)

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Effective Strategies for Teaching Organization Skills to Elementary Students

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Effective Strategies for Teaching Organization Skills to Elementary Students

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Effective Strategies for Teaching Planning and Organizing Skills in Elementary Students | Everyday Speech

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Effective Strategies for Teaching Planning and Organizing Skills in Elementary Students Effective Strategies for Teaching Planning and Organizing Skills in Elementary Students Introduction: Planning and organizing skills are essential for success in school and life. These skills help students manage their time, prioritize tasks, and stay focused. In this blog post, we will explore effective […]

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1. How does setting priorities help people accomplish their goals?

2. List all of the things that you need to do this week. Prioritize the list.

3. What criteria did you use to prioritize your list?

Using Quotations

"One today is worth two tomorrows."

Ask students to think of other proverbs that are similar to this (e.g., "never put off until tomorrow what you can do today," "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," "a stitch in time saves nine"). Ask students why they think there are so many variations on this sentiment.

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How does setting priorities help people accomplish their goals? List all of the things that you need to do this week. Prioritize the list. What criteria did you use to prioritize your list? "One today is worth two tomorrows."

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Improving Organizational Skills - Grade 10

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Improving Organizational Skills - Grade 10

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By Multiple Everyone at Khan Academy received a plea recently: I’m hoping to organize a blog post that joins together stories of how each of you manage your time, and lessons you’ve learned in your adventures so far. I’d love to learn from all of you, and I’d bet anything that a ton of other […]

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Learning to get organized, stay focused, and get things done are must-have skills when it comes to schoolwork.

These skills can help you with just about everything in life, too. The more you practice, the better you'll get. Let these skills become go-to habits that make your life work better.

Get Organized

Organize your stuff. Everything is easier when you're organized. You can get to work faster without wasting time looking for stuff.

Keep your assignments and class information organized by subject. Put them in binders, notebooks, or folders. If you find yourself stuffing loose papers in your bag or grabbing different notebooks for the same class, it's time to stop and reorganize!

Clean out your backpack every few days. Decide where to keep things you want to hold onto. Offload things you no longer need to carry around.

Organize your space. You need a good workspace - someplace quiet enough to focus. It's best to work at a desk or table where you can spread out your work. Have a set place for homework. That way, when you sit down, you can shift into work mode and focus more quickly.

Organize your time. Use a planner or planning app to keep track of your schoolwork:

Write down all your assignments and when they're due.

Break big projects into parts. Mark the dates when each part needs to be complete. Be sure to schedule when you'll work on each part.

Mark the dates you'll have tests. Then make a note of when you'll study for them. One sure way to reduce test anxiety is to prepare by studying (really!).

Enter other activities on your calendar. Fill in times for team practices, drama rehearsals, plans with friends, etc. This helps you plan ahead because you'll see when things might be too busy to get all your work done. Use your planner to schedule a time to do your schoolwork on days you have other activities.

Get Focused

Avoid distractions. When you multitask, you're less focused. That means you're less likely to do well on that test. Park your devices and only check them after you finish your work.

Some people focus best when it's quiet. Others say they study best if they listen to background music. But music with lyrics can distract you. If you find yourself reading the same page over and over, it's a clue that the music is a distraction, not a help. If you need to block out other sounds, try white noise or nature sounds.

Take breaks. Taking a short break between assignments can help your mind stay fresh and focused. Get up from your desk. Move, stretch, or walk around to clear your head. Take some slow deep breaths. Then get back to your studies.

Refocus yourself. If you get distracted, guide your attention back into study mode. Resist checking your phone or device. Remind yourself that now it's time to stay on task.

Get It Done!

Get started. It's not always easy to get started on homework. But you've got to get started if you want to get it done. Sure, you can think of a million other things you'd rather do. But if you procrastinate, you're more likely to feel stressed - and less likely to do your best work.

To help yourself get started, break down homework into small tasks. Pick one small task to do first. Some people like to start with the hardest thing. Others like to start with something easy. Then do it.

Keep going. When you finish the first task, tell yourself , 'Alright. I got this done.' Then move on to the next task. Keep it up. Cross off each task as you do it.

Some people find it helps to set a timer for five (or 10) minutes. See how much you can get done before the timer goes off. Coach yourself to keep going for another five minutes. Don't rush. Just try to work at a steady pace.

Finish it up. Stay focused as you do the final steps and details. Cheer yourself on - you're almost at the finish line!

Check your completed work. Put your work into the right folder or binder. Pack up your backpack for tomorrow. Now you've got it DONE.

These skills may sound simple. But they're not always easy. If you need more tips to organize your work, stay focused, or get it done, ask a teacher, school counselor, or a parent for help.

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It's not just for school: Mastering the skills of getting organized, staying focused, and seeing work through to the end will help in just about everything you do.

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Being organized doesn’t require buying expensive things. If your child needs help getting organized, try these simple ideas.

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CCC Organization & Time Management Poster

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CCC Organization & Time Management Poster

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CCC Research Guide: Organization & Time Management

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CCC Research Guide: Organization & Time Management

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Develop Your Students' Digital Organization Skills

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Develop Your Students' Digital Organization Skills

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Develop Your Students’ Digital Organizational Skills- AVID Open Access

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Learn strategies and digital tools that students can use to effectively and efficiently organize their class materials and share their achievements.

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The Successful Person's Guide to Time Management with Self-Assessments

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The Successful Person's Guide to Time Management with Self-Assessments

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Keeping Track of School Assignments on Google Sheets with Template

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Keeping Track of School Assignments on Google Sheets with Template

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Practical Way to Keep Track of School Assignments

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The Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Kids Time Management

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The Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Kids Time Management

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Many kids are overwhelmed by the prospect of fitting everything they have and want to do into the few short hours after school. Between homework, activities, and just time to play, there's a lot to do. But even though most kids don't have the cognitive skills to organize their schedules independently until middle school, you can start teaching them how to plan and prioritize their time now. "When we teach children strategies for time management from an early age, they internalize them, which sets them up for lifelong success," says Lynn Meltzer, Ph.D., president of the Research Institute for Learning and Development, a nonprofit research and educational organization.

Wondering how the heck to begin? No worries. Teachers shared their tips on the essential concepts and lessons to teach, age by age, so you can make this school year's schedule more manageable, successful, and a whole lot more fun for everyone!

For 3- and 4-year-olds, time is essentially divided into now, and not now. But that's enough to help them figure out how to predict and plan what comes next. To reinforce that knowledge:

Talk about the changing seasons. All those leaf prints (and later in the year, snowflakes) on display in almost every preschool classroom aren't coincidental, says Stephanie Lampert, a pre-K teacher from Atlanta. The seasons are a primary vehicle for introducing the cyclical nature of time. "It's an extremely abstract concept," she says, "and preschoolers are extremely concrete thinkers. By observing a tree over the seasons, for example, kids can see the progression: The green leaves of summer turn red, then brown, and eventually fall off the tree before coming back to life again in the spring. This is a tangible representation of the passage of time that little ones can understand."

How does that help with time management? By observing the patterns in nature and in their daily lives, little kids intuitively grasp the concept of time - and how to create order. Reinforce those lessons by having your child sort family photos by seasons, for instance. Or point out patterns in nature when you go for a walk.

Create a (picture) schedule. "As adults, we use apps and calendars to remind us what we should be doing and when. In the preschool world, we use pictures - like an apple for snacktime and a book for storytime," says Ellen Dietrick, a Needham, MA, preschool director whose classrooms are dotted with visual cues to keep her young charges on track. So while these 3- and 4-year-olds can't tell you the exact hour they have snacks, they know it comes after circle time and before the bathroom break. "It gives them a comforting sense of order and predictability," Dietrick says.

Since little kids love routines and repetition so much, create charts of your child's morning and bedtime rituals. Then have your child check off the steps as he does them - an important lesson in breaking up a bigger chore into smaller, more manageable ones. Try thesenine ways to make choretime fun, too.

Practice waiting. "Time management, at its most basic level, is the ability to delay gratification," a skill linked to better study habits and grades, among other things, says Dietrick. To strengthen time management, Dietrick devises situations that require her students to wait for something they want. "If they clamor for pajama day, for example, we schedule it for a week away, rather than the following day," she explains. "We mark the days off on the calendar and build up the excitement as the event gets closer. This gives them a sense of what it feels like to postpone something - and a positive experience to associate with it."

Try something similar with outings and birthdays: Begin talking up that trip to the zoo a few days beforehand, for instance, or tell your child to keep a running birthday wish list. Even planting a bulb, watering it, and watching it slowly bloom teaches the art of patience.

As kids move through these early grades, they're learning to read calendars and clocks. Those are the basics they need to stick to a schedule. To reinforce the skill:

Find a place for everything. "A kid can't finish his morning work if he can't find his pencil. So organization has to come before time management," notes Staci Carper, a first-grade teacher from Marietta, GA. To motivate her students, Carper created Deskalina, a cousin of the tooth fairy, who looks for clean and orderly desks and leaves a note, a prize, or a piece of candy when she finds one. When Deskalina starts flitting about, the desks in Carper's classroom suddenly become tidy. Carper also sets up clear routines, like a "Keep Here" folder for unfinished schoolwork and a "Take Home" one for homework.

To encourage your child to keep her homework supplies (or room) organized, invent your own mythical being to bestow treats and notes. An easy-to-spot weekly checklist ("Homework in backpack? Reading log signed?") will also go a long way in keeping your kid on top of things.

Use a visual timer. To help her first graders comprehend how much time is left to complete a task, Carper displays a pie-like visual timer on her Smartboard. When she sets it for 15 minutes, for example, one-quarter of the "pie" turns green. As the seconds tick away, the slice becomes smaller, and when there are only five minutes left, the slice turns red. Seeing time literally slipping away can help kids pace themselves, she explains.

You don't have to be a teacher to score a visual timer - apps likeChildren's Countdown (for younger kids) and fit the bill just as well. So do old-school egg and sand timers. Use any during homework sessions. If you have a second grader, for instance, set the timer for 20 or 25 minutes. Give your child a star each night he finishes before the buzzer, and reward a week's worth of stars with a special treat over the weekend (like a one-on-one walk to the park with you). The goal is to help kids tackle their assignments more effectively and efficiently, while making them more aware of the ticking clock, Carper says.

Be clear about consequences. "Grade-schoolers can and should be held accountable for their own assignments and they need to feel the consequences when they drop the ball," says Joan Greenfield, a second-grade teacher from West Hartford, CT. Sometimes those results happen naturally (i.e., if she doesn't study her spelling words, she probably won't do well on the test); other times an adult has to set the ramifications. Every Friday, for example, Greenfield has something called Choice Time, when students get to choose what they want to play with, from board games to Legos to computers. "My students live for Choice Time. But our class rule is that they only get to participate if they've completed all the assignments in their classwork folders." The valuable lesson kids get? "Good things happen when I work hard and manage my time and missing them is what happens when I don't," Greenfield explains.

Your child has a better shot at absorbing this lesson if you resist the urge to email an excuse to the teacher every time she fails to turn in her homework, says Greenfield. Instead, give your kid the onus of explaining to the teacher what went wrong, and how she plans to avoid the problem next time. Discover moredo's and don't for helping your child with homework.

Homework and extracurriculars increase at this age so it's even more important that kids learn how to set goals, prioritize, organize, and think flexibly, says Dr. Meltzer. Your goal: To get your child to manage his time more purposefully, without a lot of nagging and hovering. How to accomplish this:

Work on estimating time. "In order to make a realistic schedule, you need a good sense of how long things take," says Marcia Grosswald, an upper-elementary resource teacher in Summit, NJ. To teach this vital skill, Grosswald has her students spend a few minutes at the end of the day planning their after-school hours. "I give them a chart that breaks the afternoon and evening hours into 15-minute intervals," she explains. "Each time slot is followed by three columns: what kids plans to do, what they actually did, and reflection."

The reflection piece is essential, Grosswald says, because constantly reassessing how things are going helps a kid adapt his schedule accordingly: Last time I had a soccer game at 5 p.m.,I had tough time concentrating on my homework afterward. This time, I'm going to do my hardest assignments before practice.

If your child's teacher doesn't do this, do it yourself at home. Make a chart, have your child fill out the first column himself, and then fill out the last two items together, discussing what went according to plan - and what your child can do about the things that went awry.

Plan for long-term assignments. Deciding when to do tonight's math assignment is one thing. Figuring out how and when to tackle the book report diorama that's due three weeks from Tuesday is quite another.

"The key with long-range projects is to break them down into smaller steps - reading the book, for instance, or shopping for materials - and then break those tasks down into even smaller nightly assignments, like reading chapters one to three," says Amy Broocke, who coordinates a tutoring program at her school in Richmond, VA. She also suggests your child use sticky notes when she's adding tasks to the calendar; that way, the note can easily be moved to another day if the assignment takes longer than expected.

Your child can also plan the steps necessary to complete a project by working backward from the due date, suggests Grosswald. Talk through the process together so the assignment feels less overwhelming:You probably need a day to shop for materials and three days to do the diorama. That leaves you with 10 days to finish the book. It's 150 pages long so you need to read 15 pages a day. Here's how to create a stress-free study space.

Set priorities. "It's essential kids learn to differentiate between 'have tos' and 'want tos' and learn to prioritize and self-monitor," says Meltzer. To help her class do that, Grosswald uses a rock, pebble, and water analogy. The rocks and pebbles represent the students' duties, she explains, with the rocks signifying their most essential tasks (like school, homework, and sleep) and the pebbles representing their extracurricular commitments. The water stands in for want-to-dos, like video games and hanging out with friends.

"I use a jar to represent a day," she says. "The rocks go in first because they are things you have to do whether you like it or not. Next come the pebbles. But there's still some room in the jar, so we pour water until our jar - and the day is full."

If you do the rock jar at home, as I did, you'll have a chance to chat with your kid about her goals, priorities and passions. Don't be afraid to make changes if you notice the balance is a bit out of whack. After our conversation, we decided Emma would kick off the school year with fewer extracurricular pebbles crammed between the rocks - and a lot more of that refreshing water known as chill time.

Photo credit: 101cats/iStockphoto

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The Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Kids Time Management

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Whether your kid is a preschooler or a soon-to-be-middle-schooler, she can learn how to meet deadlines, follow a schedule, and more!

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10 Steps to Foster Organization - Homework and Beyond

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10 Steps to Foster Organization - Homework and Beyond

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Updated: May, 2015
© 2019 Think Social Publishing, Inc.

Our daily lives are made up of an endless stream of thoughts, decisions, actions and reactions to the people and environment in which we live. The internal and external actions fit together, sometimes seamlessly sometimes not; largely dependent upon a set of invisible yet highly important skills we call Executive Functioning (EF). These skills, which involve planning, organizing, sequencing, prioritizing, shifting attention, and time management can be well-developed in some people (think traffic controllers, wedding planners, business CEOs, etc.) and less developed in others. They are vital in all parts of life, from making coffee to running a profitable business. The skills develop naturally, without specific, formal training, and we all have them to some degree - or at least, we all assume we all have them.

Nowhere does an EF skill challenge cause more turmoil than in the area of homework, producing monstrous levels of anxiety and dread in students, parents and teachers alike. The myriad of details that need to be accomplished in a student's class, school day or week can overwhelm even the healthiest student.

I am often asked: "If tasks are so overwhelming to their EF systems, should we just avoid having students deal with them?" The answer is an unequivocal emphatic NO! Organizational skills are life skills, not just school skills and like social skills they are rarely directly taught. Few states include explicit teaching of EF skills in their "standards of education."

So where do we start? First, we need to understand how complex organizational systems are by the time students reach middle school. We can only be good teachers if we appreciate the demands the skills we teach place on our students. Next, we need to organization as a skill set of both static AND dynamic systems.

Static vs. Dynamic Systems

Static organizational systems and skills are structured in this manner: same thing, same time, same place, and same way.

Static organizational tasks are introduced in kindergarten, first and second grade. We break down tasks and ask students to explicitly complete very defined units of information, at a certain time and place. For example, write your name at the top of the page, read the instructions, complete the work, when done turn the paper over and sit quietly until time is up.

Dynamic organizational systems and skills involve constant adjustments to priorities, workloads, time frames, tasks and places. They are less teacher-directed and more student-directed. By 4th grade, teachers are introducing dynamic assignments to students with moderate levels of support. Soon after that we expect students to be able to manage increasingly dynamic workloads with little extra support or direct teaching. By high school, almost all school and homework has dynamic components requiring students to use EF skills to allocate time, resources, places to work, etc.

Here's the good news: most of us understand that to tackle a dynamic task we have to break it down into its static elements.

The dynamic part of the task requires thinking. The static part of the task requires doing.

A dynamic assignment such as writing an essay requires a significant portion of time is spent thinking about the topic before launching into the static task of actually writing the paper. One of the great challenges for many of our students with social learning challenges is learning to break down dynamic tasks into more concrete, static chunks of work.

Start Early!

Students hone organizational skills starting in preschool, when we first ask them to clean up their toys. Teachers can accurately identify organized versus disorganized students as early as kindergarten. By 4th grade teachers expect students to be proficient with EF skills.

However, the reality is that the majority of our ASD students of all ages desperately need help with homework, specifically, and EF skills in general. Help is available. The following 10 steps illuminate specific aspects of EF skills that increase students' static and dynamic organizational coping mechanisms. While these steps are interrelated and synergistic, avoid trying to teach them all at the same time. Each may be difficult to grasp and master for the student with ASD; allow learning to take its own pace. Keep expectations realistic, talk things through regularly, and probe for misunderstandings or miscommunication. Learning EF skills is a dynamic system of its own, with its static components. Make sure your child or student experiences success and feels competent at each stage of the process.

10 Steps to Foster Organization Skills

1. Clearly define what needs to be done - Avoid assumption. Too often, parents and schools view organization goals too simply: "the student must write the assignment in his planner." We are assuming that getting the general information in the planner is enough - it's NOT! Adults must be organized in their own thinking if they are to effectively teach students with EF challenges this skill. Go beyond giving out assignments; help the student understand how to also approach the task from an organizational standpoint.

2. Move it with motivation. Almost all students with weak organizational skills also struggle with motivation to accomplish homework tasks. Parents and teachers often don't realize this lack of motivation can stem from feeling overwhelmed by the task demands. Students with the greatest motivational challenges are often our most intelligent students (e.g., those with high IQ scores). We often assume "smart" means "organized" and say things like "come on, I know you can do this, I know you are smart." Yet, they may have the hardest time motivating themselves when overwhelmed because they have never had to work at learning. By adolescence, students need to appreciate that completing work - even work that seems somewhat ridiculous to them - has its rewards. It establishes them as hard working in the eyes of others, improves their grades and increases feelings of self-worth through meeting their grade level academic expectations. Many students need to start at a much more concrete level of motivation, with very small work steps combined with reward early in the task completion process. For example, if a student cannot easily work for an hour, have him work successfully on a single part of the task for just 10 minutes before he gets to pause and congratulate himself. Self-motivation increases when students feel confident in understanding and accomplishing the task - even part of the task. If a student is not motivated, it doesn't matter how well you teach how to approach the assignment, they will not implement the ideas.

3. Prepare the environment. Most adults familiar with helping students "get organized" understand this point. Establish a dedicated workspace for homework that includes the essential tools: technology, supplies, oversight (if possible), and materials needed for the task.

4. Chunk and Time it. Assignments that sound coherent and structured to teachers can still overwhelm a student with EF challenges. For example: "write a report focusing on the economy, culture, weather and climate of a specific country." Clear enough? Probably not. Make sure the student understands how to "chunk" an assignment (break it down into smaller pieces) and how the individual parts create the larger whole. For example, not all students will know their report needs four sections, producing essentially a "mini-essays" worked on separately and then joined together. Furthermore once they chunk the project, they still need to predict how long each chunk will take to complete. The majority of our students with poor organizational skills have a matching inability to predict how long projects will take across time. In fact, they tend to be weak in all aspects of interpreting and predicting time. This is an essential life skill! Consider this: Is there anything you do without first predicting how long it will take? We just about everything, gauging how the task will or will not fit into what we're doing now, an hour from now, later in the day or later in the week. Homework functions in much the same way. Students are more willing to tackle homework when they can reliably predict how long they will have to work on the task. For example, a student will usually calmly do math if it should only take 5-10 minutes. However, for those who don't predict time well, the nebulous nature of the activity incites anxiety and they may cry 45 minutes over doing a 10-minute math assignment. When the student does not - or cannot - consider time prediction as part of his organizational skill set, he is likely to waste a lot of time rather than use time to his advantage.

5. Use visual structures. As the school years progress, homework shifts from mostly static tasks given by one teacher to mostly dynamic tasks assigned by many different individuals. We expect students to self-organize and know how to juggle the many pieces of learning that make up each class, grade and level of education. Yet, this valuable skill is never directly taught! Visual long-term mapping charts, such as Gantt charts, can help students plan and monitor multiple activities. These bar type graphs allow a student to visually track multiple projects across time, determine when they are due and how much time is available to work on each. Gantt charts are frequently used in businesses and project managers, but have yet to make it into student software for school/homework planning.

6. Prioritize and plan daily.Keep in mind that many of us make daily lists, but don't always complete all tasks on our list. We get to the priority items and postpone other tasks. Within the school setting the teacher often dictates priority, but priority is also dependent on the point or credit value. Just because a task is due does not mean a student needs to make a decision to complete it, especially if it is a low value to the student or the teacher. Sometimes students have to make a choice: Do I study for the test or turn in the assignment only worth 3 points? Help students to develop priorities and understand that the most desirable tasks sometimes need to come last - after slogging through the drudgery of other tasks. We all have to do the boring work! However, even with a prioritized plan in hand many students will still struggle with actually working on the tasks. Many students with high intelligence may have difficulty working on projects not of their liking. Their baseline attention span may be no more than 7-10 minutes on non-preferred tasks. (Test baseline attention by observing how long s/he can attend to mundane projects without self-distracting. You may be surprised by how short it is!) Help students succeed with their daily schedule by teaching them to take frequent small breaks at the end of their baseline attention span. For example, a graduate student in theology found he could only push himself through 10-minute work cycles before feeling overwhelmed or internally distracted. He used a visual time-timer and gave himself a short stretch break every 10 minutes. Once he completed a number of these short work cycles he gave himself a larger reward. The key to using self-reward is to make sure the small reward isn't likely to be distracting or absorbing (computer games, TV, reading a book). Instead make these small breaks quick and refreshing, just to refocus attention: sensory based activities (stretching or movement), a small snack, a quick trip to the bathroom or walk around the room.

7. Hunt and Gather. Simply put: students need to plan time into their schedule to locate different resources to complete a task. For example, research at the library might be a "chunk" they plan for on their homework list (don't forget travel time!). Check out the work of Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen for great strategies around the concept of "Get Ready, Do, Done."

8. Consider Perspectives. Homework is more effectively completed when students start by considering the teacher's perspective before diving into the assignment. An assignment done well is one that meets the teacher's expectations and follows the teacher's instructions. A high school student went to great lengths to develop a computer program for his computer programming class. His teacher came to me exasperated, explaining that while well done, the project was totally unrelated to the class assignment. Parent perspectives enter into the homework plan also. Many parents expect children to finish homework before watching TV or going online. Even though the child may have accomplished a great deal of homework (in their mind enough), trouble can still erupt because it wasn't finished in the parents' minds. Perspective taking can be quite overwhelming to many students with social learning and organizational problems. A strategy called Social Behavior Mapping can help students understand how expectations, actions and reactions affect others and ultimately has an impact on the way they feel.

9. Communicate and then communicate some more. Knowing when and how to ask for help can be challenging for students with social learning and organizational weaknesses. Avoid assuming students - especially "bright" students - should intuitively know how to ask for help, clarification or even how to collaborate with others on assignments. These skills are not nearly as simple as they seem and may need to be explicitly taught. Tip: as students age into middle school and beyond, most are turning to their peer group rather than their teacher for help. This helps to establish peer support networks desperately needed for success in college.

10. Completion and reward. Be sure the child knows what finished means, both at school and at home. For instance, a homework assignment is not truly "done" until it is turned in to the teacher at school. While homework baskets/bins (static) are commonly found in elementary school, they are less obvious during middle and high school years. Make sure your students know where to turn in homework. Also, parents should save celebrations for completed projects until after the assignments are actually turned in. Many of our students do the work, but never get around to turning it in.

Take the Time!

This is a message we need to constantly reinforce. As children age up, tasks become increasingly more complex and dynamic. Teachers and parents need to work together in identifying and teaching any or all of the 10 steps mentioned in this article that are problematic. Teaching organizational skills takes time across a long period of time and is critical not just for homework - but also for life!

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10 Steps to Foster Organization: Homework and Beyond!

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Our daily lives are made up of an endless stream of thoughts, decisions, actions and reactions to the people and environment in which we live. The internal and external actions fit together, sometimes seamlessly sometimes not; largely dependent upon a set of invisible yet highly important skills we call Executive Functioning (EF).

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Building Older Students' Organizational Skills

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Building Older Students' Organizational Skills

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Building Older Students’ Organizational Skills

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Educators can help empower middle and high school students to independently manage their growing responsibilities.

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How to Teach Your Grade-Schooler Organization Skills

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How to Teach Your Grade-Schooler Organization Skills

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Here are seven ways to teach your child organization.

1. Recognize "wants" vs. "needs."

Goal: Sort out and prioritize what your child wants to do vs. what your child needs to do.

Example: Your child does homework first. Playing with friends comes later.

2. Take one out, put one in.

3. Categorize, label, and sort.

4. Picture the day.

5. Make daily checklists.

6. Keep a family calendar.

7. Break big projects into smaller steps.

About the author

About the author

Amanda Morin is the author of "The Everything Parent's Guide to Special Education" and the former director of thought leadership at Understood. As an expert and writer, she helped build Understood from its earliest days.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Ginny Osewalt is a dually certified elementary and special education teacher with more than 15 years of experience in general education, inclusion, resource room, and self-contained settings.

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7 Ways to Teach Your Grade-Schooler Organization Skills

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Ready to help your grade-schooler get organized? Here are seven simple ways to teach your child organization skills.

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Executive Functions Assessment: Time Management

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Executive Functions Assessment: Time Management

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Page 7: Time Management

Many students with learning difficulties-especially those with LD and ADHD-struggle to manage their time. They do not have a realistic sense of how long it might take to perform a task, such as completing their homework or a large project, often overestimating or underestimating the necessary time. They might also not recognize the extent to which competing activities (e.g., volleyball practice, talking on the phone) affect the time available to complete school-related tasks. This is why some students fail to complete homework or hand in poorly done work that was completed at the last minute. In many cases, the student has no idea why she or he had trouble finishing the task.

Listen as Hannah and Erin discuss how they manage their time. Note the differences in their approaches.

Transcript: Hannah

I would say I'm good at managing my time, because I play basketball and volleyball and so I have to be able to manage my time since I have extracurricular activities as well as all my homework and tests and other things I have to do. I love to write things down and be able to cross them out because I feel like I've accomplished something, I guess, when I cross them out. And so I do use a planner and write all my stuff down. It also helps me recognize that, hey, this isn't the only thing that I have to do tonight. I need to study for my test and do my homework in this class tonight, and so I just don't forget as much stuff. If I'm doing my homework, I usually have it out while I'm doing my homework so I can look at it and see, hey, I need to go ahead and do this because I haven't done it yet or I need to study for this because I haven't studied for it yet. And so I guess when I'm doing my homework, I usually have it out all the time just so I can see it. It kind of keeps me aware of the things I have and haven't done.

Transcript: Erin

Managing time has always been an interesting topic for my life because I really don't manage it. I put everything off, and I just mess around until it's at the very last minute, and I have to get it done. And then I have a hard time realizing how long projects are going to take. I've often got into trouble at school because I would think, "Oh, well, this project will take just a couple of minutes tonight," and really it's a three-day project that I should have started days ago but I put it off until the very end, and then it's not as good as it could have been if I had properly done the work. Honestly, how I approach big tasks is I wait until the last day and then do it all at once. I've had a couple teachers that, when they give big projects, they would break it down into smaller tasks, and it was very helpful for me because I can't do that myself. If you give me a small task, like, say, write the first paragraph of this paper by this day, and then write the second paragraph and work in the first topic by this day, I can do that. I can do the smaller tasks, but I can't do it for myself. And so it's been a struggle to learn how to break it down appropriately because I'm not able to do that naturally. I personally don't like checklists. It's just a big list of things you have to do, and since I can't prioritize tasks very well I tend to avoid checklists as much as I can.

Some students, like Erin, often have difficulty completing tasks due to poor time management skills. Teachers can help students better manage their time by teaching them how to estimate and schedule their time as well as monitor their schedule.

Estimate how much time it will take to complete a task.

Use time estimates to make a schedule or timeline.

Create a system (e.g., to-do list) to make sure the task is completed.
Estimate Time
To help students better manage their time, teachers can provide instruction on how to estimate how much time it will take to complete a task. This can be accomplished using the steps listed below.

1. Ask the students to estimate how long they think it will take to complete a given task (e.g., reading a section of the text and answering six comprehension questions, solving ten math problems, going to the library and checking out a book).
Note: It is beneficial to break up tasks, especially large projects, into smaller, more manageable chunks. Students who struggle with organizational skills will likely view a large project, such as a book report or a term paper, as a single mountainous task. They might not understand that the large task can be broken down into a series of smaller steps, thus making it much more manageable and less intimidating. To help students with this process, teachers can either routinely break large tasks into a series of smaller steps and provide the list of steps to the students or they can teach students how to break down tasks themselves (i.e., perform a task analysis). (See the example below.)

2. Ask the students to perform the task so that they can determine how long it actually took.

3. Discuss the results with the students.

Highlight disparities between the estimates and actual time.

Discuss why some students' estimates might differ. For example, some students might write faster or be better at math.

4. Discuss the importance of accurately estimating time. For example, if you were to underestimate the time it takes to drive to the movie theatre, buy a ticket, and find seats, you might miss part of the movie. If you were to overestimate it, you might have to wait a long while for the movie to start.

5. To give students an opportunity to practice this process, ask them to think about a large upcoming assignment. First ask them to create a task analysis and to estimate how long it will take them to complete each step. (See the example below.) Next, the teacher and the students should share and discuss their time estimates. The teacher should highlight estimates that were unrealistic and help students make more realistic ones. Again, the teacher should stress that estimates can differ from student to student, and that this kind of variation is perfectly normal.

Example of a task analysis with time estimates
In the event that students become overwhelmed by the idea of completing a large assignment or at the amount of time a task will take, teachers can assure them that they can complete the task if they schedule time for each of the steps. (See the link Schedule Time.)
(Close this panel) Schedule Time
Once students have learned how to estimate how much time it will take to complete a task, they should be taught how to schedule their time. The teacher can show the students how to use these estimates to make timelines. Two methods are described below. Though the first is easier for students to implement, the second might be more beneficial because it gives each student a better idea of when to start working on the project.
Example of a task analysis with time estimates
A better method is to have the students use a calendar and work backwards. Students start at the due date or slightly before and fill in the tasks, something that will give them a better idea of when to start working on the project. When teaching this method, teachers should discuss how building in a little extra time is beneficial in case something unexpected comes up. They should also model how to incorporate outside events (e.g., family trip, soccer practices, a part time job) so that students understand that they should incorporate these events when they plan. Below is an example of a calendar (or a timeline) completed by a student who has been assigned a research paper.

Though the method and example above describe and illustrate how to create a timeline for creating a large project, many students benefit from weekly or daily schedules (see the example of a weekly schedule below). When setting up a weekly or daily schedule, students should remember to include activities such as:

A specific time for studying (preferably an hour or longer)

Brief breaks after each hour of studying

Recreational activities

Several nights to study for a test, as opposed to trying to cram the night before

12:00-4:00 Youth Group activity
(Close this panel) Monitor Schedule
Simply scheduling time for daily or weekly activities or for completing projects will be of little value if students do not monitor their schedule. For a schedule to be effective, students must check their calendar on an ongoing basis. They might find it beneficial to create a to-do list to accompany their schedule, something that will help them to outline specific items to be completed each night. To illustrate this point, view a student's calendar for Monday and Tuesday and note that in the accompanying to-do list specific homework tasks (e.g., complete math problems, read history, study for Spanish quiz) are listed.

If a student is working on a large project or long-term assignment such as a research paper, he should monitor his progress by using his calendar to check how much of the project he has accomplished. Doing so will let him know if he is on schedule, behind, or even ahead of schedule, which, in turn, will give him feedback on whether he needs to put in more time (if behind). When they teach students to monitor their schedules, it is important for teachers to show students how to make adjustments should they fall behind or should unforeseen circumstances occur.

Recall that Erin has had great difficulty with time management. However, once she started using a planner and monitoring it on a daily basis, she saw the benefit.

"I do review the planner. It's become... a habitual thing that every night I go through and I look at what the next day holds, or what assignments are due the next day or later that week. And I have a weekly schedule of what classes are going on when and what is due when so that I can look at the big picture now as well as the day to day things." - Erin
(Close this panel)
Research Shows

Thirty-seven fourth- through seventh-grade students with ADHD received an eight-week intervention in which they were taught how to accurately record assignments and tests in a planner and how to plan for tests and projects that were scheduled or due in the distant future. At the end of the intervention, the students demonstrated improvement in homework management skills.
(Langberg, Epstein, Urbanowicz, Simon, & Graham, 2008)

Middle school students with ADHD who had difficulty completing homework were taught how to self-monitor their actions by using a checklist and to self-evaluate how well they followed the behaviors on the checklist. On average, these students showed a marked improvement in homework completion.
(Gureasko-Moore, DuPaul, & White, 2007)

Tip

Planners can be great tools for helping students stay organized and complete work on time. However, simply handing a student a planner and telling her to use it is unlikely to be effective. The teacher needs to explain the reasoning behind using the planner, model its use, arrange for structured practice in using it, check it frequently, and reinforce students for using it.

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Many students with learning difficulties-especially those with LD and ADHD-struggle to manage their time. They do not have a realistic sense of how long it might take to perform a task, such as completing their homework or a large project, often overestimating or underestimating the necessary time.

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Study Smarter, Not Harder | Kiki Fan | TEDxKerrisdaleLive

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Organization Printables to Share With Your Students' Families

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Organization Printables to Share With Your Students' Families

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Download these free printables to help your students and their families get organized. They can help with morning routines and other organization challenges.

Getting - and keeping - a backpack organized is a huge challenge for many students. Help families turn a luggage tag into a backpack checklist that's an easy, discreet tool to help students keep track of what they need to carry to and from school. Depending on what grade you teach, you may want to give families the version for older kids.

For many families, homework can be a source of great frustration and tension.A homework contract can be a good resourcefor families who are looking for new ways to manage this challenge. It can hold everybody accountable for what they need to do to make sure homework gets done on time and well. A homework contract can help students feel proud of the work they do. It can also help students stay on track to complete work that meets the standards and expectations you set for them. Depending on what grade you teach, you may want to share the version for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers.

Spanish PDF of homework contract for grade-schoolers

Spanish PDF of homework contract for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers

Understood article for families that explains how to use a homework contract

Getting ready for school can be challenging for some students. Picture schedules can help them follow these daily routines. For many families, these visual planners are easier to follow than written schedules.

Much like a morning routine, an afterschool routine can be challenging for some students to follow. Share this picture schedule with families to help students stick with a schedule for homework and other important activities.

Handing out a school communication log can help you encourage families to communicate regularly with you - and to let them know you welcome hearing from them. The log helps families jot down notes about important meetings, phone calls, emails, and other school-to-home communication. The log also makes it easier for families to keep track of who they communicated with and when - which can be especially helpful if their kids are struggling with academics or behavior.

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Organization printables to share with your students' families

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Download free printables to help your students and their families get organized. Use these to help with morning routines and other organization challenges.

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Tips for Helping Students with Learning Disabilities Become Better Organized

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Tips for Helping Students with Learning Disabilities Become Better Organized

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by Carolyn Ito

Students need organizational skills for school success. Students who lack organizational skills are at a disadvantage because they often seem to be "two steps behind" the rest of the class. They are late and unprepared. While they are looking for needed materials they miss critical information like, "Today we are going to ...," or "There will be a test on Friday," or "I changed the date of your book report." The following suggestions are for teachers and paraprofessionals who work with unorganized students of all ages and disabilities. Included is information on organizing students' personal space, notebooks, planners, time, and an annotated bibliography of resources.

Organizing Personal Space

Desk:

Pyramid Style: texts on left, spines out, largest book on bottom, notebooks/supplies on right

monitor work area: clear of unnecessary, distracting material

shared desks: turn opening away from student so items are less likely to be left

build in clean up time at end of each class and remind students to take personal belongings

Locker:

arrange to have unorganized students' lockers near special education teacher's room

interior arrangement of locker

top shelf: texts, horizontal, color-coded book cover spines

hooks: use for hanging clothing, bookbag

bottom shelf: notebooks vertical, in order of classes, supplies

contents: daily schedule, pictures, decorations, mirror

clean out schedule: weekly clean out for first month, monthly after that or whenever lockers are not well-organized or necessary items cannot be found

Bookbag:

weekly "dump" or clean out (Friday afternoon)

remove, discard: outdated papers, wrappers, non-working tools

put in right place: all papers, tools, clothing, books, notes, etc.

use check list of criteria as a part of notebook check

note needed repairs

team decision: teachers decide where book bags will be kept during class (in lockers, under desks, or hanging on back of chairs)

Pockets:
Help students establish one designated pocket for money, one for notes

Purses:

Encourage use of book bag for personal belonging

guys: deodorant, comb, keys (no cologne)

girls: lipstick, comb, deodorant, female necessities, keys (no nail polish, perfume, hair spray, etc.)

Organizing the Notebook

Teachers should provide list of materials needed for the year. The list should be distributed prior to the beginning of school, at open house, and again at mid year. Be sure each newly enrolled student is given the list. Keep copies handy for parent conferences.
Notebook:

one large notebook (2") with dividers is better because it is easier to keep up with and students have everything needed when schedules change

arrange subjects in order of class schedule

use front pocket for homework assignments to do, completed assignments, and notes to parents

monitor for needed replacement when rings are bent or cover is mutilated (write or phone parents)

include plastic pencil pouch for 2 or 3 pencils, 2 pens, reinforces

label notebook with student's name, team, etc.

Teacher support for maintaining organized notebooks:

keep a folder of worksheets for absent students and so that students can get a replacement sheet for those lost

keep a master notebook containing all the work, notes, etc. for student reference

appoint someone to take notes for absent students-work out buddy system

write the Table of Contents for each notebook on the board in a consistent area, adding to it daily

consistency across teams is helpful

Checking notebooks:

collect notebook contents periodically-at least every 3 weeks or when units are complete

grade the notebooks for completeness and organization (can give a notebook quiz instead) team decision as to percent of grade earned through notebooks refuse to grade notebooks without a complete table of contents, name, class students can assist with grading own, partners

allow class time for ordering pages 1 or 2 days prior to when notebook is due

make notebook preparation a homework assignment

save selected notebooks for portfolio, conferences, and exam study

Assignment Recording: Using a Planner
Necessary features of planners:
Organizing Time
Setting goals, making choices and establishing priorities:
When you manage time, you make the most out of life. (Santeusanio, 1989, p. 53) lifetime goals, long-range goals (3-5 years), short-range goals(this week)
Daily schedule:

whole day=24 hours, school=6.5 hours, eating=1, sleeping=9, grooming<1, studying=1

locker, notebook, team area, homeroom board

write on index card, move a paperclip down as each class is complete

Weekly schedule:
168 hours in a week, 30=school, 56=sleeping, 10=eating, 72=left over
Long-range planning-projects:

group and individual

choose project within 2 days of its assignment

discuss project with parents

check progress by using a sequential list of tasks with due dates

Social-time for friends:

school-sponsored activities: clubs, games, dances, sports

community sponsored: sports activities

done in groups-skating, movies, church

Work:

students are often one or two years older than peers

need to have work permit

have an interest in pocket money

experience seems to build the student in peers' eyes

work on weekends in bussing tables, cutting lawns, newspaper route, child care

paid under table so learning poor things about the world of work when work

during the week, it is too much, tired, not doing homework usually school work suffers

monitor closely, advise parent(s) when work begins to interfere with school

Annotated Bibliography: Resources for Teaching Organizational Skills
Curie, P., deBrueys, M., Exnicios, J., & Prejean, M. (1987). 125 ways to be a better student. East Moline, IL: Lingui Systems.

Best suited to middle and high school students, this is a compilation of study skills units including background information for the teacher, lesson plans, and reproducible student worksheets. Teachers may choose individual units or use the book as a whole to enhance organization and independence. The units included are: Organizing Yourself and Your Study Time, Organizing Your Materials, Organizing Your Work Area at Home, Using an Assignment Book, Surveying, Underlining or Highlighting, Skimming, Outlining, Taking Notes, Following Oral directions, Responsibility for Behavior, Test Preparation, Test-Taking, and Test-Proofing.
Florey, H. (1987). Study orientation skills. Tuscaloosa, AL: Henry E. Florey, Jr., 3714 Paver Drive, Tuscaloosa, AL 35405.
Designed for secondary and college students, this study skills program covers a number of topics. Terms are defined and illustrated with many examples. Many pages are provided for self-inventories and practice. Topics presented include Motivation, Goal Setting, Time Management, Listening, Note Taking, Textbook Reading, Concentration, Preparing for and Taking Tests, and Organizing and Writing Papers. This manual and the Student Manual (see McDonald, B., Dickerson-Young, L., and Florey, H.) are given to participants who attend the successful study skills workshop.
Heacoz, D. (1991). Up from underachievement. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing, Inc. Irvin, J., & Rose, E. (1995) Starting early with study skills: A week-by-week guide for elementary students. Needham Heights,MA: Allyn and Bacon. McDonald, B., Dickerson-Young, L., & Florey, H. (1986). SSS: Successful Study Skills: The success program Student manual. Tuscaloosa, AL: Henry E. Florey, Jr., 3714 Paver Drive, Tuscaloosa, AL 35405.
Ten study skills chapters suited to secondary and college students contain definitions of terms, rating scales, and some practice activities. The ten chapters are: Motivation, Goal Setting, Time Management, Learning Styles, Listening, Note Taking, Textbook Analysis, Organization, Memory/Concentration, and Test Taking. The manual is given to participants who attend the Successful Study Skills workshop sponsored by Henry Florey.
McMurchie, S. (1994). Understanding LD-learning differences: A curriculum to promote LD awareness, self-esteem and coping skills in students ages 8-13. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Press. Rooney, K. (1988). Independent strategies for efficient study. Richmond, VA: JR Enterprises, 2115 Willowick Lane, Richmond, VA 23233.

Karen Rooney presents many strategies to assist upper elementary through high school students with organization. Each strategy presented has some background information, visual examples, and limited practice. Among the included skill areas are Time Management, Notebook Organization, Textbook Reading, Flashcard Study, Wheels for Reading, Writing, Math, and Literature, Notetaking, Spelling, Vocabulary and Memorization, and Test-taking Strategies. Research on the development of the strategies concludes the book. Teachers will need to supplement what is presented in order to have enough relevant material for student practice.

Santeusanio, R. (1989). Improving your study skills: Developing study skills Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, Inc.

This student WorkText contains nine units including Locating Information, The Library, Taking Notes, Using Visuals, Managing Time, HEART: A Study System, Reading Rates, Taking Tests, and What to Do When You Don't Understand. The material is suited to middle and high school students. Questions and exercises follow background information. Teachers may need to supplement the materials presented.
Santeusanio, R. (1988a). Study skills and strategies: Student text. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, Inc.

The student worktext contains practical suggestions and strategies. Each chapter explains what, why, and how the student will learn the material. Practice material follows. Topics presented are Getting Ready to Study, HEART-A System for Studying (seven chapters), Managing Your Time, Learning from Visuals, and Using Research to Learn. The program is suited to middle and high school students.
Santeusanio, R. (1988b). Study skills and strategies: Teacher's manual. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, Inc.

The Teacher's Manual contains background material for teachers including an extensive reference list. Materials for each chapter include objectives, Teaching Suggestions, and the answers to the questions in the Student Text.
Strichart, S., & Mangrum, C. (1993). Teaching study strategies to students with learning disabilites: ready-to-use reporducibles, teaching plans, and resources for middle to high school. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

This teacher resource text contains background information, teaching plans, reproducible pages, and exercises to practice new skills in a variety of subject areas. Topics covered in the text are Remembering Information, Reading and Taking Notes from Textbooks, Solving math Word Problems, Taking Notes from Class Presentations, Using the Library, Using Reference Books, Interpreting Visual Aids, Writing a Research Paper, Taking Tests, and Using Time. The References and Bibliography section is extensive.

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I Think I Did It, But I Can't Find It: Assisting Students Who Lack Organizational Skills

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by Carolyn Ito Students need organizational skills for school success. Students who lack organizational skills are at a disadvantage because they often seem to be "two steps behind" the rest of the class. They are late and unprepared.

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How to Make the Most of Independent Work

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How to Make the Most of Independent Work

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Students often struggle with procrastination during solo work time, but teachers can manage it in a way that supports deep learning.

In many of today's classrooms, you'll find students on individual computers, working while their teacher circulates. Independent work time has become a mainstay, with one-to-one technology making it even more ingrained.

There are benefits to this approach, but it also comes with challenges, like keeping students on task while providing efficient, effective support. In an attempt to tackle this dilemma, I implemented a three-part system for the days when my students needed more extensive independent work time: framing the work time with an opening "triage activity"; intentionally setting and, if necessary, resettingthe environment; and incorporating midway and end-of-work-time debriefs.

Below, I explain each part of the system and share insights from my first year implementing it.

Step 1: Triage Conferencing Time

When students will be working independently for more than 15 minutes, I project a list of options for them to indicate where they are and how they're feeling. For example, during a sophomore research unit, options included "confident and rolling," "doing OK for now on my own," "I have a specific and quick question," and "I hit a wall and need support."

I have a number next to each option, and every student jots down their chosen number on a sticky note or in their spiral notebook, where I can easily see it as I circulate.

The benefits of this approach are twofold: Students have to actively reflect on their understanding of the task and current progress in a tangible way (a skill that translates beyond the classroom); and teachers can differentiate their support, first attending to students who indicated they had a "specific and quick question," then having more extensive conferencing time with students who said they "hit a wall and need support."

By looking at the numbers that students choose, I do this without interrupting them unnecessarily-I move through the room and know immediately where a student is at and what they need, which is even more important in my largest classes.

Step 2: Set the Environment

Another helpful strategy for setting students up for success during independent work time is to embed a countdown clock on a projected slide deck. In my experience, it's important to set a specific time frame for students and provide a visual.

This also allows me to hold myself accountable to doing a scan of the classroom once we're five minutes in. Observing students, I ask myself these questions: What percentage of students are actively on task? If they're allowed to use technology, are they using it as a tool? For those students who initially said they were "confident," has that momentum continued?

If the classroom isn't where you need it to be, stop and reset for a better environment. It's much easier to do this after five minutes than waiting until later in the session, when the environment has been established. You can also repeat directions in a positive way.

For example, I might say, "Hey everyone! I'm going to pull you back, as I noticed that I moved too quickly through the directions and want to emphasize the expectation that...."

Step 3: Create Space for Debriefing

Earlier in my career, I didn't create enough time to be intentional about how students exitfrom independent work time. This can be a simple yet valuable step. Have students give themselves a score between one and five based on how productive they believe they were, and have them write down an explanation about why.This is also a great chance to have them share and reflect collaboratively, making sure the classroom community is strong, even on days more heavily skewed toward independent work.

You may even want to break work time into two separate sections with a debrief midway, followed by a reset of expectations. Though this may feel like an interruption, it models for students what it looks like to hold yourself accountable during an independent task.

Before fully exiting from work time, I also like to have students complete an exit ticket in which they write what their next steps are for the task or share a lingering question they have. If you're going to return to the task in a future lesson, collect responses and showcase them before the next work time to connect the work and ensure that it isn't fragmented by the limitations of the bell schedule.

Improving Independent Work Time Matters

It feels important to note that I very much believe the classroom should be a collaborative space. Making it such has been, and continues to be, a priority for me throughout my teaching career. But sometimes students need time to work, and building their capacity to use that time efficiently and intentionally can serve them long after school.

Whether they find themselves in a professional position in which they frequently have to multitask under a deadline, or they choose to work remotely, which itself requires self-management, the ability to take ownership over one's process-and then reflect on that process afterward-is not just an in-the-classroom skill. It's a lifelong skill that is made more meaningful when students have chances to develop it, with support, at school.

I've often found that students who begin our work time noting that they are "doing OK for now" later realize, midway or even at the end of our independent working session, that they in fact need support. In debriefs, they have revisited and adjusted their initial answers to take accountability for where they actually are, which has led to important conversations about how to advocate for support earlier and more effectively in future spaces.

That's why I believe in providing a reflective lens through which to enter and exit independent work time in a reliable, purposeful classroom environment: I believe we can make the classroom better for students in the short and long term.

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How to Make the Most of Independent Work Time

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Independent work time may give way to procrastination in middle and high school, but teachers can use it to support deep learning.

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30+ Fun Time Management Activities and Tips for Kids (Free PDF Included)

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30+ Fun Time Management Activities and Tips for Kids (Free PDF Included)

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30+ Fun Time Management Activities and Tips for Kids (Free PDF Included)

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The Ultimate Guide to Time Management for Kids: 8 FUN time management activities, 22 MUST-TRY tips and 4 productivity techniques that work!

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Teaching Time Management to Students with Learning Disabilities

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Teaching Time Management to Students with Learning Disabilities

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Teaching Time Management to Students with Learning Disabilities

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Teach your students how to improve their time management. Learn to teach task analysis, enabling your students to divide academic projects into smaller tasks, figure out how long each task will take, and produce their work when it needs to be done.

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"Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed."

Have students discuss why time could be called a "resource." Have them brainstorm other things they might be able to manage once they have a handle on their use of time.

Create a crossword including terms they have learned in this lesson and other words relating to time.

Students create an acrostic poem about time and perspective.

Have students find songs with time as a theme.

Have students compare the lyrics to these songs. Have them consider why time was important to the writer of each song. Create a playlist of the class's favourites or have students make up lyrics of their own.

For one week, have students estimate the amount of time they need to complete their homework, and then record how long it actually took them to complete each assignment.

Have students report the accuracy of their estimates. Discuss their work styles (e.g., working while watching TV) and remind the class that people work at different paces. Explain the importance of these estimates in budgeting time.

Have students create weekly calendars. Have them write their schedules on the calendars, and then block off time for studying.

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"Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed." Have students discuss why time could be called a "resource." Have them brainstorm other things they might be able to manage once they have a handle on their use of time.

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Learning Objectives

Discover and visualize how your time is spent each week

Identify priorities for how you want to spend your available time

Name strategies to increase time management to focus on priorities

Introduce the strategy
Begin by telling students that they will spend some time thinking about how they spend their time and discovering ways to use their time with intention by doing things that matter to them.
Part 1: Visualizing Time
Provide students with the Time Management Spreadsheet . Ask students to fill out the sheet, dividing their time between the 4 categories listed (school, sleep, extra curricular, unstructured time). If one-to-one computers are not available, print the document and provide students with crayons or colored pencils to complete the activity by hand.

Once students have finished filling in their calendars, divide them into small groups to discuss and reflect on what they noticed or realized during this activity. Use the following discussion prompts:

What surprised you about how your time was divided?

Where do you spend most of your time?

What change would you like to make on how your time is divided?

Where do you not have control over your schedule?

Where do you have control in your schedule and can make a change?

Part 2: Prioritizing

Begin part two by mentioning to students that they have a lot of time in their daily life that is not in their control, such as time spent in school, sleep, chores, or jobs. The purpose of this exercise is to identify the space where they do have control and make good choices during those times.

Ask students to refer back to their calendar and identify the total number of hours each week that were designated as "unstructured time." Use the Unstructured Time Chart or have students build their own. Ask them to consider what they are already doing during these times on one side, and identify what their priorities are, and what they actually want to be doing!

Teacher Tip : You might notice that a lot of students spend time on social media. Share with students that not all social media is bad but, but that it's important to recognize what it is replacing. Are they on social media when they could be with friends, outdoors, doing something creative?

Give students time to reflect independently on what they hope to prioritize during this unstructured time, asking them to consider what makes them feel good, what they enjoy? There may be some overlap between the columns, but help them notice what things they wish they were getting to but are not currently prioritizing.

Finish by having each student identify 2-3 things they would like to prioritize more with their unstructured time. Encourage students to pick things that will feel good to them, like self-care, exercise, or being creative.

Teacher Tip : Share with students that unstructured time is important! These are the moments in our days where we get to unwind, follow our interests or take care of ourselves and others. Let students know that this time should be valued.

If students are stuck coming up with ideas, share some of the following:
Part 3: Naming Strategies
Now that students have identified priorities, brainstorm as a class some strategies they can use to ensure that they are using their unstructured time for the items they listed as priorities. Ask volunteers to share some ideas and create a list on the board. Then, add any of the following options that might not have been mentioned.

Strategies:

Use a timer when you go on social media

Make a schedule

Have an accountability buddy (someone who checks in on you and vice-versa)

Leave post-it reminders on your desk

Write down your goals

Closing
End the lesson by asking students to choose one strategy from the list they made together that they will use in the following week. Then, have students refer back to their Time Management Spreadsheet to visualize and plan moments in their week where they can focus on the priority items that they chose. Finally, remind students that planning their schedules is not only in service of being more productive but to build balance and awareness.
This lesson was adapted from a previous lesson developed by Challenge Success. Find more lessons and strategies to support time management at the link provided: Last reviewed May 2023. https://challengesuccess.org/resources/time-management/

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Time Management Lesson Plan - Making Caring Common

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As children get older, they encounter increasingly complex academic, social, athletic, and familial demands on their time which can be difficult to navigate. Help your students learn how to prioritize and balance their commitments with this time management lesson plan. Total time: 1-1.5 hours over

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How to Get Students to Use their Planners

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How to Get Students to Use their Planners

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Mentally tracking assignments and activities is difficult-here's a way to guide students to use paper or digital tools to ease that cognitive load.

As the initial excitement of the school year fades, we may notice a pile-up of once-exciting, now-ignored office supplies-student planners among them. While many students have been given or instructed to use a planner, only some have been taught how to use one.

Empowering students to use and benefit from planners takes some strategic teaching, yet the executive function growth (and ease of work management for students and teachers) is well worth the effort. Let's explore a few strategies to get students to actually use a planner or similar system.

Explore How You Work and Consider Options for Students

Start by thinking backward from the goal: How do planners serve students? Do you personally use a planner, and if so, how? If not, how do you manage your work and schedule? You may find that although you've recommended that your students use personal planners, maybe you've individualized a system of work management that best serves you-all digital, all on a traditional paper planner, or a hybrid of both.

Once you've identified the purposes of using a planner, you can expand your thinking about what planning tools could look like. Broadly, we rely on planners (or other work management systems) to do three things: capture our to-do lists and activities, schedule our actions and represent time, and remind us of future tasks.

1. Capture to-do lists and activities: Other tools to do so could be the Google Classroom list, a note on their device, a photo of the whiteboard, or calendar additions.

2. Schedule actions and represent time: Main calendar in classroom, personal paper or digital calendars, digital calendars linked to teaching platforms (Google Classroom, etc.), timers, visual schedules, or steps of a project calendared each day.

3. Remind yourself of future tasks: Attention-grabbing visuals, like sticky notes or colors and highlighters, alarms on devices, countdowns in classrooms, and automatic emails or notifications.

You can always make modifications for students of any readiness level. Students with moderate to severe learning challenges absolutely benefit from learning planning systems, and their engagements may look different. Maybe they'll choose icons to build their daily schedules, or they are managing their daily to-do list with visual representations of their tasks. Be mindful to consider that every brain gains self-efficacy and builds new neural pathways by practicing executive function.

Emphasize How Planners Help Students

Consider getting buy-in by having students engage with planning tools in the context of fun; they can learn the capture, schedule, and remind systems by adding activities and dates for school assemblies, birthdays, sports games, and field trips. They will be learning the systems in an enjoyable way, increasing the likelihood that they will remember and continue to use them. Establish that you'll expect students to capture, schedule, and remind themselves about their tasks. One tool to do so is their planners, and you can honor that they may find other tools and test them out, too.

You can also share some interesting brain science to sell them on the need: Our working memories can hold three to five things at a time, so having a system to capture, schedule, and remind is really a brain hack-it's a way to make students' lives easier, saving them frustration and time.

Model the Steps and Empower Students to Use Planners Independently

Allow time in class for students to capture, schedule, and remind-make it part of your routine each day. You can prompt with directives in the beginning and fade to questions as students show more mastery.

For example, when you assign work or a deadline, prompt students to capture their commitment. You can model writing it in an example planner or entering it in a digital list. If you give a larger project, consider backward-planning it (creating chunks, with mini-deadlines) as part of your project's introduction. The time you invest in planning the project will pay off when you don't have to chase down missing student work.

You can expect students to make mistakes or even forget to use their systems throughout the year. After all, their brains are doing double duty of managing the content and learning and honing a new system.

Your students with ADHD, autism, or other learning differences may have more significant executive function needs. They may rely on your model or more frequent prompts before they independently use a planning system. However, be careful not to assume lack of effort or motivation on their part. Their brains may just need more exposure and opportunities to test-drive strategies until they've found the just-right system for them-think of how many years we allow for students to learn how to read.

As you plan your planner lessons, add some time to celebrate growth. Many teachers love to showcase systems that students create and iterate, and you may find that you learn from their planning tools, too.

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How to Get Students to Use Their Planners

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Mentally tracking assignments and activities is difficult-here's a way to guide students to use paper or digital tools to ease that cognitive load.

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Prioritization Skills: How to Manage Tasks for Better Productivity

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Prioritization Skills: How to Manage Tasks for Better Productivity

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Prioritization Skills for Students | Revolution Prep

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Learn how to help your student achieve long-term goals with the prioritization of tasks, an invaluable skill, from an expert tutor at Revolution Prep.

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Develop Your Students' Time Management Skills

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Develop Your Students' Time Management Skills

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Learn strategies and digital tools that students can use to develop their time management skills.

As we empower our students by giving them more control over the time, path, place, and pace of their learning, it becomes increasingly necessary for our learners to have strong time management skills. These skills are especially important during self-paced virtual learning, where we are not present to help guide and redirect their use of time like we would be in the face-to-face classroom.

In order for our students to gain these necessary skills, we need to be intentional in teaching them the strategies and digital tools that are available to help them manage their time. By doing so, we can help our students avoid the stress caused by procrastination and set them up to successfully meet their assignment deadlines.

Along with directly teaching our students these strategies and tools, we must provide them with repeated opportunities to apply these skills. The more opportunities that we can give our students to make the decisions regarding their time, the better they will be able to develop their time management skills. For example, rather than always directing every step in the learning, we need to give students opportunities to break larger projects into smaller tasks and to prioritize multiple tasks over an extended period of time. This, of course, will need to be scaffolded and adjusted depending upon the age and experience of the students, but all learners can work toward self-managing their time and tasks. It is also important to provide students with opportunities to reflect on their time management practices so that they may refine their own personal best practices.

When we develop our students' time management skills, we not only help them successfully meet class deadlines, we also help them gain a life skill that will benefit them both personally and professionally in the years ahead.

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Following are four overarching time management strategies and related digital tools to consider teaching your students. The strategies are written with the older student as the intended audience, so you may share them directly with your students. You can also reference these strategies and resources to design age-appropriate lessons and materials for teaching your younger students these skills. In fact, these time management strategies and tools are also great for us educators to manage our tasks and use of time, as well!

You can share this flyer with your students and families, as it conveniently summarizes the suggestions in a one-page document.

4 Strategies and Digital Tools to Effectively Manage Your Time

Effectively managing your time will help you meet classwork deadlines, increase the quality of your work, reduce your stress, and accomplish your goals, while also helping to ensure that you have time for your other interests and passions.

The older we get, the more that there is to juggle between school, work, and home. A first step is to use a digital calendar to keep track of upcoming school, work, and personal events (test dates, project due dates, piano practices, football games, work schedule, etc.). To help you keep to your daily study routines, block time in your calendar for a consistent time every day for studying. You can use the digital calendar in your learning management system and/or create your own calendar using Google Calendar or a Microsoft calendar.
Calendar Tips

Customize your display and share settings.

Toggle between day, week, and month view, as needed, to better keep track of current and upcoming deadlines.

Consider color-coding calendar events and/or using multiple calendars. For example, create a calendar for classwork due dates using a different color for each subject. Some people find it helpful to use a calendar or color for personal events (piano practice, football games, and work schedule) and another for family events (a cousin's wedding). If you use multiple calendars, you can then turn on and off specific calendars, as needed.

Share your calendars with family and friends to help communicate upcoming events with each other.

Leverage event options.

Event Title: Be clear, concise, and consistent so that you can easily search for them (for example, Test: Math Unit 1).

Links/Attachments: Add links and/or attachments to relevant files to save time digging for them later (like when creating a calendar event for the math test, include a link to your class notes).

Notes/Description: Include reminder notes or other relevant details (for example, watch teacher video linked in LMS).

Use the repeating events option to schedule recurring events, such as your daily homework times.

Set up notifications.
Set up calendar notifications on your school device and/or phone. Depending upon the digital calendar, you can send yourself pop-up reminders and even automated emails to arrive the week and day before the deadline or event.

Use these tips to achieve both academic success and personal goals.

First, clearly define your goals.
Set specific, measurable goals that include attainable action steps with corresponding deadlines (see SMART Goal Template). Add these deadlines to your calendar.

Second, prioritize your tasks.

Review deadlines and prioritize tasks from most urgent to least urgent.

Complete urgent tasks first and schedule time to complete the less urgent tasks later.

Anticipate the unexpected. Plan on completing assignments or studying for tests early to avoid issues caused when unexpected things come up. "To be early is to be on time."

If needed, remove nonessential tasks to ensure that you have time to dedicate to your essential tasks.

Set reasonable time limits to dedicate to each task. This strategy can help you avoid issues related to perfectionism that keep you from moving onto the next task. Use a digital timer, like Classroomscreen (Tips), to monitor your time.

Third, develop your to-do checklists.
Break each major task into a checklist of things "to do."

For larger projects, avoid the stress and issues related to procrastination by making a project plan. Consider how you can break the large project into three to five major tasks with to-do checklists for each major task. For each of those major tasks, assign a deadline that you can add to your calendar.

The next step is to create a daily or weekly action plan. Set aside time each week to review your calendar, goals, priority tasks, and related checklists that need to be accomplished for the week. From there, divide these tasks into daily agendas and/or a weekly planner.

This planner should also include the time that you blocked for studying. Select a time of day when you are at your mental peak. Everyone's internal clock is different; select a time that works best for you (before school, after school, evening). Include time in this daily schedule for routine tasks, such as checking on assignment feedback, responding to emails, and reviewing your LMS for new assignments.

See the weekly planner templates from SlidesMania that you can download for free in PowerPoint and Google Slides formats.

Regularly reflect upon your goals, priority tasks, and action plans. Are plans helping you to achieve your goals and meet your deadlines? If not, what adjustments do you need to make to your plans? For example, do you need to adjust the amount of time designated to tasks? Are you using your time most efficiently (see the study space and routine flyer for more tips). Consider how you can refine and develop your own personal best practices for time management.

Related AVID Open Access Articles

Extend Your Learning

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Develop Your Students' Time Management Skills - AVID Open Access

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Learn strategies and digital tools that students can use to develop their time management skills. As we empower our students by giving them more control over the time, path, place, and pace of their learning, it becomes increasingly necessary for our learners to have strong time management skills.

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With a better understanding of time, students are able to plan and prioritize their work in ways that support academic success.

John Holcroft / Ikon Images

Successful students are able to use their time effectively to get their work done. Teachers often encourage their students to use their time wisely and be efficient in their work habits without explicitly telling them how to do so. Providing explicit lessons on understanding time can be particularly challenging for new teachers, but there are several simple ways to teach students what time feels like. These lessons will make it much easier for students to independently self-monitor and better organize their time.

5 Ways to Teach Time

1. Encourage estimation. Before students begin an assignment, have them estimate how long they think it will take. After they complete the assignment, have them write down how long the assignment actually took and reflect on the estimation. Often students anticipate an assignment taking a shorter amount of time than it actually does. As a result, they may not set aside an adequate amount of time to complete the given assignment. Conversely, had they known the assignment would be completed quickly, the student may have prioritized work differently.

As students progress through school, we want them to become better at organizing their schedules and prioritizing tasks. When students estimate and then reflect, they can be more aware of how long a given task will take and will anticipate accordingly. Initially it's best to practice within class assignments. Once students have had practice, it can be incorporated into homework.

2. Use a visual. Use a timer that gives students a visual of the passing of time. This helps students stay on task and gives them a way to organize their time effectively. For example, if students have 10 minutes to finish four short written responses, when the timer hits 5 minutes, students should be reminded that they should be about halfway done. If this becomes a routine in a classroom, students can start to organize and prioritize the work they are completing independently.

3. Set a minimum. Teachers often give students a limit on the time they can use-for example, "You have 30 minutes to complete this assignment." Instead, try setting a minimum rather than a maximum. By letting students know that the task should take at least 20 minutes, you are prompting them to slow down and monitor. Students might confuse speed for success. They are eager to announce, "I'm done," but have rushed through the process.

Additionally, teachers can build in other systems that help students focus on the process rather than the product. For example, teachers can add in checklists or rubrics that students must refer to as they work on their assignment. This builds in natural moments of reflection.

4. Incorporate silent time. Time, or the feeling of being timed, can cause anxiety to rise. As stress increases, one's ability to utilize their executive functioning skills decreases.

At the beginning of a task or assessment, set a timer for a small amount of silent time, such as 5 minutes. During this time, students are not allowed to ask questions. You might find that when the 5 minutes are over, students have filtered their questions and either have gotten started or have identified their confusion. The use of silent time encourages students to implement a plan independently and initiate the task.

5. Try half timed and half not. When giving a task like recalling math facts, have students write their answers in pen for the first minute. Then, allow students to continue working untimed in pencil. This allows them to differentiate between automaticity and ability. Often the stress from being timed can negatively impact a student's ability to showcase their knowledge. The use of a pencil and pen also allows students to reflect on how time restraints impact their learning.

Students need to learn how to organize time to be effective and productive. Fifteen minutes of playtime or screen time feels different than 15 minutes of writing. When teachers are explicit and teach students how to use time and give them a significant amount of practice, students will begin to internalize time and be able to independently plan and prioritize a given task.

As students progress through school, they must eventually not only plan and prioritize a task but plan and prioritize many assignments over several weeks. In order to be successful, students must learn ways to organize their time efficiently and use their time effectively. If students can practice organizing their time when working on one task and experience success doing so, they can begin to generalize this skill and carry it out in their independent assignments.

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With a better understanding of time, students are able to plan and prioritize their work in ways that support academic success.