Summer is here! At the time that this is being published, it’s almost Memorial Day weekend, 2020, which is the kick off to summer in many parts of the country! Also, if you noticed the ‘2020’ part, then you know that we are also in the midst of a pandemic, which has made this kick-off to summer a little strange.

I’m seeing so many teachers online start to look ahead to next year. For me, a great way to look ahead to a new school year is to think about a problem in your room that you’d like to solve, and start looking for solutions while you have the time!

Today, I want to share one solution to a problem I always had in my classroom: early finishers!

Now, the students who finish early aren’t a problem, at ALL. They are super smart, and work quickly, which is great! The problem comes in when you want to make sure they are always engaged in purposeful, standards-based work, but they fly through the things you planned. There is nothing worse than carefully planning a bunch of math centers that are supposed to last a full math block, and then having that group of kids who are done 15 minutes in.

My PBL projects and tasks lend themselves really well to early finisher work, so I wanted to share an easy “Early Finisher Station” that you could work on this summer. This is the kind of classroom solution that can be set up once, and barely touched throughout the school year…which is my favorite kind!

If you also want to have a grab-and-go solution for early finishers, scroll through to see how this could be set up!

Step 1: Gather and organize your materials.

The PBL projects cover essentially all of the math domains in 2nd grade, so money, rulers, mini clocks, and manipulatives for regrouping would all be great to have handy. If this is going to be an early finisher station, you want students to be able to seamlessly move onto this area without having to interrupt your small group instruction. You can set these items up with the projects, or you may already have an area for your manipulatives that is easy for your students to access!

Basic art supplies are also good to have within easy reach of your students for these projects. If your students don’t already have access to crayons or markers, you may want to add some of these to your station.

I have some labels for different baskets of supplies and projects (like the labels seen in the photo above!) You can get these for FREE below!

Step 2: Print and Prep the Projects

If you want an early finisher station that can be left alone for 2-3 months at a time, I would recommend using some time this summer to prep several projects at once! In this station, I have out three projects at once. The students can choose which one they want to begin with, work on it at their own pace, turn it in when they are finished, and then move on to the next bin of their choosing!

Most of the pages in both of the PBL Projects and Tasks work well as a stapled packet. The majority of the pages are black and white, and you could include the colored menus and task cards in the packets so each student has their own set. Or, if you want to save on ink, you could print 5-6 sets of each colored page and create sets for the students to share!

This bin has sets of task cards paper clipped together, along with some rules for the measurement tasks!

Also, each of the PBL tasks and projects are differentiated. There is an on-level version, and the pages are marked by a circle. There is also a more challenging copy of many of the tasks. These pages are marked with a square. If you want to include two different versions in the same basket, a folder or a gallon ziplock bag is a great way to keep the packets separated.

Step 3: Teach Students How to Use this Station

Like any good classroom routine, you will want to explicitly teach your students how and when to use this area, so you can let them independently use it for the remainder of the year! A station that is full of packets of paper is bound to get messy…unless you teach your students how to put things back with care!

I recommend following an I Do, We Do, You Do model at the beginning of the year (or whenever you choose to introduce this!). Explain and model how you want students to come to this station, what you want them to do when they get there, where they should work, where they should store their incomplete project for the days that they are still working on it, what they should do with supplies, etc.

Then, let them practice! Let small groups of kids practice coming to the station, choosing a project, pulling out supplies, then cleaning them up.

Once the kids have practiced, it’s safe to assume that they will mostly remember what to do. But, I think with all of the routines that we teach the first few weeks of school, that it’s always wise to create some sort of visual reminder to help kids along! I’ve created a FREE expectations poster for you to display with your station. You can laminate and hang on the wall, put it inside the bin where you keep your projects, put it on a bulletin board, etc!

Step 4: Maintain the Station Through the Year

After stocking this area with projects and supplies, then teaching your students how to treat it with care, the ONLY thing you have left to do is swap out the projects every couple of months!

If you choose to use the PBL projects in your station, those will last your students a good, long time. They can store their unfinished packets in their desks, and only go to the station for supplies as needed. On average, one PBL project will last a week or so whole group, so if students are working on one of them in chunks, they may hang onto one more a month or more.

Once you start having students saying that they have finished all of the project options you have put out, it’s time to swap out what’s in the bins! Will you have students who have an unfinished project in their desk? Most likely. You can give them the sets of task cards they need to finish in their own time, or reserve one basket or bin to hold task cards from all previous projects. Your room, your rules!

PRO TIP: Appoint one parent volunteer to come in once every other month and copy sets of PBLs + cut task cards. Or, ask for one volunteer at the beginning of the year to come in and do all of them at once. You can create a binder or file of masters and repeat year after year, without putting extra work on yourself!

And there you have it! An early finisher station that students can access independently, and ensures that your fastest finishers are always working on standards-based, rigorous, engaging resources!