7 Tips for Teaching a Big Class

At the beginning of last school year, I was excited to be teaching a new grade at a new school in a new district.  I had made a big change, and it was just what I needed.  To add to all of the "new", I was starting the year with 30 students.  Thirty is definitely on the big size as it is, but we all know that new kids trickle in over the course of most school years...and last year was no different!

By the time the school year was over, I was sharing my classroom with 34 awesome 5th graders.  We all learned a lot, grew a lot, and had a pretty good time while doing it! It was definitely a learning process for me, and hopefully I can share some of what I learned to make your year better for you!

1. You've Got to Embrace It

Here's the thing, your class size is your class size whether you like it or not, so you've got to embrace it.  It's going to be crazy.  It may get chaotic.  It's going to be crowded.  But your attitude will be a major determining factor in the kind of year you and your students have.  Now, I'm not saying that my teammates and I didn't take time to vent about the added challenge we were facing; we're only human!  But throughout the year, I'd joke "I'm mentally preparing for how I'm going to respond when [my principal] comes to tell me that I'm getting my 33rd/34th/35th student."  You may have to "fake it till you make it" but having the most positive attitude you can will go a long way. 

2. Room Arrangement 

While I'd wrapped my brain around having a big bunch of kids, I was having a harder time figuring out how all those desks were going to work in my smallish classroom.  That might have been the part that was the most stressful for me.  Luckily, my students were OK with all the experimenting I did while trying to figure out the best room configuration for us.  I want to share with you guys some of things that worked for me.

• Push groups of desks together.  I started the year with 8 teams of 4 since my district is a big believer in Kagan cooperative learning.  That meant that there were teams and desks wall-to-wall.  Then I decided to push the teams together so desks were in groups of 8-9.  This made a HUGE difference.  Kids were still in their teams of 4-5, but we gained a LOT of floor space which made it easier to move around. 
• Find a way to give kids space to spread out.  One thing I noticed as the year went on was that we were so packed in there that kids didn't have a lot of personal space and I could see levels of grumpiness increasing because of that. I let them work at my small group table, in a quiet spot on the floor, etc.  You have to get a little creative, but your students will thank you if they have a place to momentarily "escape".
• Get rid of your desk.  It's surprising how much extra space this will give you.  Use your small group table as your "headquarters". 
• Give flexible seating a shot.  When I got my 34th student, I knew that I could either fit 34 desks into my classroom or keep my sanity.  I couldn't do both.  I'd used flexible seating at my old school, but was trying to not rock the boat too much at my new school.  I reached out to my principal and told her I'd like to try some flexible seating. I know not everybody is ready to jump into flexible seating, but here are a few things you could try. 
• Sweet talk you custodian like I did and see if any tables are available.  They take up a lot less room than desks. 
• Take the legs of a table and have a low table.  It doesn't technically give you more space, but the room will feel more open.
• You can get rid of a handful of desks and provide some floor seating options like pillows, stadium chairs, or rocker seats.  These all can get tucked away nicely at the end of the day. 
• Move to community supplies and if you don't have cubbies, etc., provide bins (they can be cheap!) for your kids to keep their personal supplies in. 

3. Have your students help!

One thing that every teacher deals with is having about a million things at a time running through their head.  Having a large class can make that even worse.  There are just SO MANY moving pieces. And teachers (including me) often have a hard time delegating responsibilities.  At one point, it really hit me - "There are 34 people in this room who are not me.  How can they help me more?"  I know that I am lucky in that I teach 5th graders who are pretty capable of having different responsibilities in the classroom, but I think that students at any age can do a lot more in the classroom than they may be doing.  And I found that having students help with the little things honestly freed up some much needed space in my brain as well as making the classroom run more smoothly. Plus, kids of all ages LOVE having jobs to do!

Here are some of the little "tasks" I had students help me out with:

• Changing the date on the board
• Being in charge of taking our library cards to/from the library
• Putting homework in student mailboxes
• Grabbing my walkie-talkie at recess time
• Turning on and/or connecting the projector when we were going to use it (I've got kind of a clunky set up)
• Taking tardy passes down to the office on the way to lunch or recess (without me asking!)

4.  Delegate

I know we're not all lucky enough to have parent or other volunteers, but if you do, USE THEM! It took me a while to get into the swing of the best ways to use volunteers, but I found that using them to both work with students and help me out with tasks was the best combination. 

• I've always had parents who can't come in to help because of work, but say they could help at home.  In the past, I never used them much, but once I realized that I could send laminating home to be cut or booklets to be stapled, those parents became a great resource. 
• Even if students were playing a math game or something like that and were fine working on their own, I'd ask a parent volunteer to take them into the hallway or another common area to work just to free up a little space in the classroom.
• Let go of the perfectionism and have volunteers hang up bulletin boards or classroom displays.  If it's not perfect, I promise you're the only one who will notice.
• Get in the habit of asking yourself, "Could somebody else do this?" and if the answer is yes, and you have someone that can do it, let them.  That frees up more time for you to do the things only you can do like planning and grading. 

5. Don't grade it all!

It's hard to ignore the fact that you've got a big class when you have a giant stack of papers to grade sitting in front of you. Thirty plus math tests, essays, reading assessments, etc. is a LOT.  One of my good friends is also a 5th grade teacher in my district and she only had 19 kids.  I spent way to much time lamenting the fact that I had 15 more math tests to grade than she did! Grading those summative assessments is unavoidable, but really think about what else you need to grade.  Do you need to take the time to look over 30+ homework assignments, or could you review them with the whole class?  Do you need to grade every piece of classwork or can you quickly scan through it to use as a formative assessment?  Can you give a short exit ticket at the end of class and not have to review entire pages of math to see if your students got the concept?  This is one area where you can really save yourself some time and sanity. 

6. Make time for every student

One thing I found was that when you have so many kids in your class, it can be really easy to unintentionally let some kids slip through the cracks during the day.  So I made a point to be at my door in the morning to greet everyone (while I let the students take on some of those beginning of the day tasks I mentioned above).  All of my students have numbers, and those numbers are on popsicle sticks to make sure everyone is getting called on during the day, but I'd also write a few kids' names on sticky notes and stick them on my cart or my projector.  That may make me sound like some kind of absent-minded professor, but if you've had a big class you know that it's easier than it should be for kids to "hide" when there are a lot of classmates around.

I also did"lunch with the teacher" for small groups at the beginning of the year just for a chance to get to get to know all of my students a little in a smaller setting.  Then it was a popular reward/incentive for the rest of the year - I think we all enjoyed spending time together with a little less chaos.  Whatever system or structure you use, make sure you are intentional about making every student feel like they are seen and heard - even if you have to leave sticky notes for yourself! :)

7. Routines & Procedures

I know that I'm not telling you anything new when I say it's important to have routines and procedures set up to make things run smoothly in your classroom.  We all know that.  But with 34 students in the room, I found that I had to run the ship a little tighter than usual.  Normally turning your homework in when you come in in the morning is a simple process, but have you ever watched 3 dozen kids try to turn their homework in at once? Gets a little crazy.   I added a second homework turn in location, and then gave a student the job of collecting both piles.  (See Tip #3!) We ended up having to form two lines when lining up after lunch or recess because it's hard to get an orderly line when you have students waaaaaaay back at the end of the line. 

Each classroom is (obviously) different and those are just examples of two things I put into place last year to help me manage all my students and keep my sanity!  I encourage you to think about ways you could put a routine into place where maybe things have been a little free flowing?  What's making you the craziest? Can you change a procedure or make a "rule" to help out with that?  It'll help you keep control of the chaos and your students will appreciate the structure, too! 

If there are some behaviors popping up in your students that you'd like to get a handle on before they get too out of control, click here or on the picture below to check out how I use Individual Behavior Goals in my classroom. 

Do you have a big class this year?  Leave a comment to tell us how many students you have and any tips or tricks I haven't mentioned!