@Julie Nelson I love your many helper jobs. You have some I hadn’t thought of. One that I have is “Electrician,” one who turns the lights on or off when we leave or return to the room.

So here’s something I often wonder about concerning the schedule at the beginning of the year. Should I include “clean up” and class bathroom breaks? (We don’t have a bathroom in the classroom so often we take half or the whole group to the bathrooms at once.) That is especially helpful at the beginning when we are teaching bathroom procedures also. However, the down side of including clean up transitions and bathroom breaks is that it can make the schedule look long for one who misses mommy from the time they are dropped off. Yet if I don’t include those details I feel like it is misleading to the littles. And I also don’t want to send the message that they can only use the bathroom when the schedule says so. Once they are familiar with the routine none of this is an issue, but in the beginning before we really know each other I just want it to be as smooth as possible.

I always have a visual schedule but I need to make the effort to include actual pictures of my current students instead of using clip art.