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How to Keep Early Finishers Engaged

Keeping early finisher students engaged is so important, and can be so tricky! So many of us fall into the trap of telling our early finishers to pick up a book. Reading is a great activity for early finishers, but we don’t want it to be the only activity!

With all of the things our students learn in a year, there are so many opportunities to work those standards into early finisher work! But, I know it can be overwhelming to try to keep up with creating work for early finishers.

Today, I want to share with you my favorite teaching routine for early finisher students. This routine eliminates all of the stress surrounding early finishers. There’s no weekly prep. Students won’t be sitting alone reading for long stretches. And, best of all, your students will grow those big brains even more!

B.A.T. Books for Early Finishers

B.A.T. stands for ‘brain is always thinking’. These engaging workbooks keep students practicing important primary skills, even when they are done with their required work. But, the best part about these books is that they don’t feel like busy work. The last thing we want to do to our early finisher students is make them feel like the reward for a job well done is more work! With B.A.T. books, students will be engaged with higher-order tasks that give them a bit of a challenge.

How to Use B.A.T. Books

I like to create one B.A.T. book for each student in my classroom. You can save paper with these books by copying the pages front and back. You can also make the front covers more durable by laminating them, so they will last longer! Student store the books in their desks, and if they run into a time when they are done with their work before the class is ready to move on, they pull out their book and get started! You can of course keep independent reading as an activity for your early finishers, too. Providing students with two options can be really helpful!

You can read more about how I first set up B.A.T. books in my room by reading this post!

math centers in a snap logo | Lucky Learning with Molly Lynch

Skills Covered

B.A.T. books cover a wide range of skills, so they are great for any time of day in your classroom. Your students will build number sense, literacy skills, critical thinking, and more! Many of the skills in these books take the standards, but dig a little deeper. So, when students are working in their books, they will be thinking hard and growing as learners!

You can find B.A.T. books by month for K, 1 and 2, or you can grab bundles for the entire year.

Check out all the Early Finisher Activities here!

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