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Let’s be real for a moment…

Those routines that we established at the beginning of the year…

Those routines that we practiced over and over until our students perfected and mastered them…

Somehow, they seem to go right out the window during December. The classroom interruptions, changes of routine, and excitement of the upcoming days off of school (not to mention the excitement about the upcoming holiday) can leave us to pick our battles as we work to ensure that the weeks leading up to the holiday break are fun for our student without causing ourselves to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated.

Returning from the long holiday break is the perfect time to refocus and reorganize your literacy block for success! (I mean, it is the start of the New Year!)

Taking to revamp your Daily 5 routines, rebuild student stamina, and create a more manageable system is the perfect way to ensure that the second half of your school year is productive and stress-free!

The Importance of Restructuring Your Literacy Block After Holiday Break

When I say reorganize your literacy block - I’m not just talking about rearranging how you store and access your materials (even though working through that can be helpful if it’s stressing you out). I’m talking about looking at and revamping how you structure your time so that it supports your students’ learning, independence, and engagement. (Which is why I love the Daily 5! If you haven’t already gotten your hands on the Daily 5 book, you can CLICK HERE to order your copy!)

A well-organized and structured literacy block is vital to your student’s success.

Not only does the structure and organization allow you to more effectively use your time (because you know there never seems to be enough time in the day), but it also supports your ability to meet your students’ wide range of needs through building independence and creating meaningful, structured activities.

On the contrary, a literacy block without a clear and organized structure is…chaotic.

Without clear routines and expectations, students are more likely to be off task and disruptive, causing teachers to feel overwhelmed and defeated. And, when you’re also battling the excitement of the upcoming holiday and time off of school, your efforts to maintain order can feel like a lost cause.

But the good news is that the chaos doesn’t have to remain your reality.

How to Organize Your Literacy Block for Success

It’s easy to feel defeated when you’re battling a chaotic literacy block.

We can begin to subscribe to the narrative that this chaos is just the way it is, further solidifying this belief by telling ourselves that “I just have a chatty class this year” or “my students just don’t have the attention span”.

But reorganizing and restructuring your literacy is easier than you may think (and it doesn’t take a ton of time either!).

Here are my favorite, practical strategies to help you reorganize your literacy block for a smoother, more effective classroom routine.

Organize Materials and Space

I’ve got two words for you…

Purge and simplify.

As teachers, we are masters of keeping things we think we’ll need someday, but in reality, they end up in the back of a file cabinet and are never seen again (and probably forgotten about). I know it can feel painful, but getting rid of outdated or unused resources and only keeping the essentials can go a long way.

This also goes for your student’s materials as well.

Consider simplifying your student’s literacy materials. Can your students get away with one folder? Maybe they need only one notebook instead of two? Do they really need five books in their desk for Read to Self?

Also, creating easy systems and routines to keep student materials organized is a GAME CHANGER! In my classroom, I loved using storage bins where my students could keep all of their Daily 5 materials. This included: a notebook, a folder for their word work handouts, a book for Read to Self, and their Book Club book.

Establish Routines and Management

Ensuring that your students have mastered your expectations is key to making sure that your Daily 5 centers stay productive.

Even the shortest amount of independent work time can quickly turn into chaos. (IYKYK!)

Just talking about expectations is not enough. Expectations need to be modeled and practiced multiple times before you can expect students to master them. And yes, this goes for upper elementary students, too! Even though I explicitly taught and practiced routines and expectations at the beginning of the year, I start each Daily 5 block by reviewing expectations. (CLICK HERE to check out what it looks like and sounds like in my classroom!)

Also…keep it simple.

Sometimes we can overcomplicate routines and expectations, making them difficult to follow and remember, which makes this time of reorganizing and restructuring your literacy block a perfect time to revamp those systems!

One routine that has simplified my classroom routine is posting the Daily 5 center rotations on the board. That way, students are no longer waiting for me to tell them where to go next; saving our classroom time and also my sanity! (Honestly, I did a little research and I found I gained back 5 minutes of instructional time a DAY!)

Rebuild Student Stamina

Stamina is like a muscle.

It needs to routinely be worked in order to stay strong, and when you aren’t using it… it loses its strength.

And it’s likely that, with the disrupted classroom routines and interrupted lessons, our students’ stamina muscle might have lost its strength.

When reorganizing and restructuring your literacy block, taking a step back and rebuilding your student’s stamina is a necessary place to start. Simply reviewing expectations will not provide lasting results if not paired with stamina building.

Just like when you introduced the Daily 5 centers at the beginning of the year, you want to start small and keep the time frame (at least at first) to something you know your students can master. Then, as students’ stamina starts to increase, you can gradually increase the time until they are back up to working independently for 15 minutes.

To help with this process, I love using stamina-building charts. They provide a visual that can help keep students motivated and working towards the goal!

Tools for Reorganizing Your Literacy Block for Success

New year, new YOU! (or classroom…)

Taking the time to restructure and reorganize your literacy block - whether it be just to calibrate after the long break or remedying a system that wasn’t working - is a great way to ensure your success for the remainder of the school year.

I put together my Daily 5 Toolkit to help you create a structured, student-centered literacy routine with ease. In it, I’ve included…

Daily 5 activities board (center rotation chart)
Expectations for each of the centers
Print-and-go stamina-building charts for each center

Take the guesswork (and planning time) out of restructuring your literacy block!

CLICK HERE to get your Daily 5 Starter Kit

10 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Literacy Block

Looking for more ways to transform your literacy block

In my FREE 10 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Literacy Block guide, you’ll learn 10 steps you can take NOW (yes, even in the weeks leading up to the holiday break) that will transform your literacy block. And with the included planning workbook page, it’ll make reflecting on your current practices and changes you’d like to make a breeze!

[CLICK HERE to download your FREE 10 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Literacy Block guide]

Reorganizing Your Literacy Block for Success in the New Year!