My System For Managing Unfinished Student Work
Ah unfinished work, it’s always there. There will always, always, always be unfinished work. There will be kids who complete everything during allotted time, there will be kids who have the odd item that they need more time with and there are kids who will always have unfinished work. The question is, how do you manage it so that it stays organized and it doesn’t become overwhelming?
In my class you do not catch up on work if you were away, unless it’s something like a project we’ve been working on that you need to finish. In that case you know what to do, you just need some time. If you missed journal or your math page, it is not “unfinished”. There’s usually too much teaching about a specific activity because we did it as a group, it was a discussion based lesson that you would need to have been a part of, or it’s something like journal that we do most days. There are very few times that you’d need to make something up. I realize this may not be the case in your class so you could adjust the system to fit it.
It’s important to note that my students do not have desks, they have shared tables and then they each have a bin where they keep duotangs, notebooks and their pencil case. If you have desks, maybe a folder stays in their desk, or it’s attached to the side of their desk. The actual set up will depend on your space and furniture.
By the way, this is for grade 2/3 level students so they are responsible enough to handle and understand the system. Ah yes…another system. Madame loves a system!
My set up
In front of my desk I have this IKEA trofast unit which is for my 9 early finisher bins. On top are 3 baskets. One for finished work (fini), one for unfinished work (pas fini) and the one in the middle is called “Pour Madame” which is for late slips, any notes, money for hot lunch etc.
You’ll notice that these bins are different than the one in the following pictures, that’s because it’s my old class and I had different bins. I now use those two bins for books since they’re sturdier. It doesn’t matter which bins you use, as long as you can fit the work inside.
I like that this is right in front of my desk because I can see students putting things in the bins and it’s easy to grab. If you don’t have a desk or set up like this, put your bins somewhere else, no biggie!
How it works
It’s pretty self-explanatory. Put your work in the bin it belongs in, it’s either finished or unfinished. But…then I decided to make it a little more “system-y” because that’s just how I roll.
I found that a pile in the unfinished bin was a lot to manage and it was hard for a student to find their work if they went searching for it. They have to work on unfinished work before choice activities so if they finish their math but they still have work from this morning, their next job is to check the unfinished bin before grabbing a deck of cards to play with or getting a book to read. So they were rummaging around in the bin, things fell out, they didn’t see if they had multiple things to do.
Essentially, the problem was that the pile was all mixed up and I very much dislike messes that can be more organized. So…enter the purple folders system!
Purple folder system
Why are they purple, Marissa? Because not much else in my classroom is purple so they’re easy to spot. It’s also just the colour I found in the cupboard. Make them any colour you want!
If you put one thing in the unfinished bin, no problem, just put it right in.
If you have more than 1 thing in the bin, you now need to get a purple folder for your assignments. The folders are stored right by the bin so they’re easy to grab. I have little stickies that we stick on the folder with a name. Since there are many students who never have anything in the bin, it didn’t make sense to have personalized folders. We all use the same folders, we just add a name when necessary.
I laminated the folders and then stapled their sides so that the work wouldn’t slip out the sides. Students can choose to keep their folder at their spot and chip away at it throughout the day, or they just leave it in the bin and come grab it as needed.
When they’re done everything, we recycle the sticky and the folder goes back on the side for the next person.
Some notes about my unfinished work expectations.
This is going to depend heavily on your own philosophy about work completion, time in your schedule for them to complete unfinished work, expectations etc. So, this is just what I do, it doesn’t need to be what you do.
If the whole class is not finished, it doesn’t go in the bin. I usually collect it because it means I may have to adjust my schedule to allow time for everyone to work on it later that day or another day.
Work being considered complete may depend on the individual student and my expectations for them, IEP etc. So it only goes in the unfinished bin if it’s actually considered unfinished for them.
Unfinished work comes before choice activities. The order is: task - unfinished work - early finisher activity. Some don’t care, but for some it’s a big motivator to get it done!
Your unfinished work is your morning work (except for Mondays since we need to write our words in the agenda and I don’t want them to miss that). In the morning, I put the folders/pages on student spots so they know if they have anything to do first thing. *See image below
I help them prioritize which pieces should be done first. If they have one thing, it’s obvious but if they have a few things, I may need to suggest which one to do first. Let’s get that art project done since I still have the supplies on the counter, for example. Or, let’s prioritize the math work over the science work.
If it’s still there after a week, I write something to the effect of “incomplete”/”unable to complete due to _____” on it. If it’s still not complete, especially if it’s incomplete because we were being silly and just not doing it, we just put it in our duotang and move on. I believe it’s important to show that work is not being completed (even when given additional time) but I also don’t want it piling up like crazy because that’s defeating. We gave it a go, and now we move on. This is especially important for those kids who never finish anything. We need to clean the slate and start fresh.
Morning work = purple folder
I lay out the folders on the spots of students who have unfinished work. This signals to them that they need to work on this instead of their morning work job that day.