Raise your hand if seating chart creation is your favorite classroom management job? Anyone? Good--me neither! It always feels like this gamble and at some points in the year or in certain classes I never felt I could get the perfect arrangement. Fast forward to our Covid-Contract-Tracing world and we need them all the time.

Wordwall.net is a VERY versatile tool. Right now I am just showing you a classroom management option you could have with it. But it's fun, fast, and easy to create and share with students for timelines, games, maps, diagrams, card sorts, categorization activities, escape rooms, etc. Try "playing" with the seating chart below. I made it with a quick cut and paste from a roster. Then play around with shuffling seats, calling on kids (tap them or have the computer choose them). Imagine how this can capture who you call on (and who you don't) so quickly live in class and any formative observations you make.

Check out the screencast on how I did it and how you can too--and GET PRINTABLES customized for your classes or quickly use the same info/students to use the group generator. Check in with me if you want to have access to this tool--I think I found a way for our staff to piggyback on my paid account--though the free is amazing too (it just doesn't have the seating chart option).

Clock partners are not new--but sometimes it's those tried-and-true techniques that can get you a lot of bang for your buck in the classroom.

I took the idea and turned mine in to "Meet me at the Mall" (Washington, D.C. not Polaris) partners when teaching social studies. We took one day to find all our partners as a meet-and-greet activity to start the year. I loved getting all the middle school awkwardness out of the way on ONE DAY--and it was SO HELPFUL for kids who have a hard time initiating connection with peers or who obsess about not having a partner when the teacher says "find a partner" during a lesson to get this out of the way in a structured activity. All the partners are already found--so instructional time is maximized and transition time is minimized. Now, that was a hot-mess activity at times because I had to manage who needed a partner and who had already worked with someone before. I was trying to make groups of 3 for odd numbered classes and it always fell apart somewhat when a student was absent that day or I got a new student. Read on for the EASY BUTTON FIX!

Fast-forward into the world of teaching in the pandemic, and now you probably want a firmer understanding of who worked with who when it comes to contract tracing. Setting timers for "exposure" is hard enough--my suggestion would be to keep partner work (other than table group work) to short bursts when you KNOW that kids just can't keep working with who they sit next to that week. Now you can know who everyone worked with for your lesson at any time.

Now, you can get CLOCK BUDDIES using this tool without even taking a day for kids to personally find partners! Simply cut and paste their names on this website and it will auto-generate a clock buddies handout personalized for each student. You just print and call out "Find partner ____" and they have it. I popped this in a sheet protector for my students, but you could easily have them glue it to the notebook or stick it in a binder.

The directions on this site are simple and can get you a print-ready handout you can have students keep in their class materials. The Clock Buddies Generator is located at the bottom of the page. You can see this website embedded here on my Google Site or use the link above to open it in a new window!