Incorporate preschool classroom jobs into your classroom using one of my free preschool printables. The simple signs will help your students keep track of jobs each day.
Classroom jobs can have such a positive impact on your classroom community! Your students will learn about responsibility and independence as they take active roles within your classroom.
I love seeing how children truly become a part of the classroom family and assigning jobs to each of its members can help with this. Be sure to grab your own copy of the job sheets at the bottom of this post.
Related: How to Create a Classroom Community
The classroom is akin to a family, with each person playing an important role. Everyone should be involved in caring for the classroom and its inhabitants, thus the need for preschool classroom jobs.
Preschool Classroom Jobs
Everyone should also be involved in the daily tasks that take place at school. Therefore, we always employ “helpers” in our pre-k class!
Why are Preschool Classroom Jobs Important?
In addition to what I just mentioned above, there are many more reasons to include jobs in the early childhood classroom! Here are a few:
- Having a special role in the classroom gives students more ownership of their school day.
- Being a helper gives a child a real sense of accomplishment, building her self-esteem in a meaningful way.
- Having a job is a positive experience for every student. This is even more true for students who are struggling to control their behavior in class.
- Obviously, it helps the teachers to get things done and keep the classroom clean.
- Jobs help the children become more responsible for themselves and their environment.
- Jobs are a concrete way for children to practice teamwork. They’re also able to see that working together gets things done quicker.
- Not every child gets to be a helper every day. This teaches the children patience.
What Jobs Should Kids Have in the Preschool Classroom?
In our classroom, we have 4 helpers each week. We have a Leader, an Inspector, a Weather Reporter, and a Caboose. There is 1 child assigned to each job for the entire week. At the beginning of each week, new helpers are chosen at random.
Our Leader helps run circle time. Throughout the rest of the school day, the Leader is first is most everything we do — first in line, first to choose a center, first to sit down for snack, etc. Any time I need something done, the Leader helps.
The Inspector keeps an eye on the cleanliness of the classroom. After clean up time, she walks around the room to make sure everything is put away and all chairs are pushed in. If there are random cleaning jobs during the day, our Inspector deals with them. The most prized job of the Inspector is . . . vacuuming after lunch! Yes, the kiddos love vacuuming, and we definitely encourage that!
But perhaps your classroom is not carpeted. In that case, you’ll need a broom and dustpan. There are lots of options when it comes to kid-friendly cleaning items. Check out my favorites below. I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
- Pretend play cleaning set
- Kid-friendly wipes
- Children’s vacuum
- Carpet sweeper
- Microfiber cleaning towels
- Sponges
- Dish detergent
- Handheld vacuum toy
- Kid’s cleaning cart
The Weather Reporter‘s job is pretty straight-forward. He’s in charge of the class weather graph for the week. During circle time, after we’ve done calendar and the Pledge, the class sings a weather song. As the other children are singing, the Weather Reporter walks to the playground door and checks the weather. He comes back in, announces the weather, and fills the weather chart in appropriately.
Our Caboose holds doors whenever needed — when we go out on the playground, when we go up to Chapel, etc. She’s also the last person in line and often makes sure her friends are lined up as needed.
How Do You Keep Track of Preschool Class Jobs?
Mary Poppins and I have a simple set-up to keep track of our helpers. We have 4 laminated sheets next to our calendar — 1 for each helper. A pushpin is placed next to each of the sheets, and the helpers’ tags are hung by the appropriate one. The helper tags are made on the first day of school, when we have each child color a “helper crayon”.
The crayon is just a piece of clip-art enlarged and copied for each student. The students’ names were printed out on mailing labels, and we attached the names once the crayons were colored. We ran them through the laminator, cut them out, and were set to go. Next week, we’ll hang all of the helper crayons on a metal ring by the Helpers board. Mary Poppins and I use a checklist to keep track of which children have done which job.
For the first week of school, Mary Poppins and I were the only helpers. This way, we were able to explain and model what we expect of each helper. On Monday, we’ll start having students take over the helper jobs. Since there are only 4 helpers each week, we often have to teach the students how to handle the disappointment of not getting picked. I usually say, “Rats! Maybe next time!” when there are whines about it. By the third or fourth week of school, the kiddos tend to say that on their own!
What do YOU do for helpers in your classrooms? I’d love to hear some of your great ideas! 🙂
Done-for-You Preschool Resources
Planning meaningful lessons for students week after week while balancing other teaching responsibilities and your personal life can be a daunting task. That’s where Preschool Teacher 101 comes in to save you time!
Preschool Teacher 101 has created some amazing preschool lesson and activity plans that will be perfect for your classroom. We have resources for a wide variety of themes and topics that will last all year long.
Click on the images below to learn more about some other amazing resources for classroom management.
Make sure you stop by and join The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101 for exclusive access to our content. We have multiple options for membership to meet your needs.
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Lana says
Can you remember which DJ Inker program the crayon is from? I know I’ve got it but can’t seem to locate it. I love these job ideas, I hope to try something similar soon.
Mary Catherine says
Lana, I got it from the Ultimate Doodle Collection, but I am sure it’s on other programs of hers too. Plus, there are so many different crayons throughout her work. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful! 🙂 Thanks so much — the kids seem to really like the jobs as well.
Lana says
I found the DJ Inker clip for the crayon on the Serendipity Soup Fall CD. There are other crayons in the various CD’s but I like this one best.
Mary Catherine says
Thanks, Lana! I don’t actually have that CD, but I’ll have to check it out. DJ Inkers is definitely one of my favorite clip art sources!