If there is one thing I have learned in recent years, it’s how important it is to know where my students are. Of course, most of them are in the classroom with me…but, what happens when we have a fire drill and I am a few students short. Believe me that is not the time to try to remember if anyone had left the classroom to go to the office or the bathroom.
So I came up with this tracking idea. I am hopeful it will work! First I purchased the largest pizza pan I could find for each class I have plus one additional one. Then I made name cards–different color for each class and hot glued magnets on back of each. The magnetic name cards were then stuck on a pizza pan. Then I hot glued a few magnets on the back of the pizza pan. I stuck the pan on the side of my file cabinet. On the extra pan, I used a painter pen and divided it up and labeled possible place students go throughout the day. Now as students need to go somewhere they move their name from the class pan and place it in the appropriate spot on the ‘place’ pan.
I needed the system to be mobile because, as I said I have multiple classes (3 to be exact). So, one pan for each class should work well.
Below are pictures of my pans…once I get my class lists I will run names on return labels and place on name cards. Oh, and, bathroom and drink are highlighted with the white, because you get to leave class a maximum of one trip to the bathroom and water fountain a day. So, once a student leaves for that purpose, their magnet does not go back on the pan but on the backside of the file cabinet.
