“I’m done!” shout the same early finishers each and every day. How do they do it? But more importantly, what do you do with them? There have been days when I would just let them play (I teach grade one), but then I began to see the quality of work change. Other students wanted to play too, so they would scribble their work to get it done. Okay, so now what do you do? I’ve got a couple suggestions that have worked (and a couple that didn’t) to share.
Why Are They Finishing So Fast?
Does this question cross your mind? It does mine. Even teaching as long as I have, it still baffles me. But this is what I am noticing. The gap in the classroom is widening. Our classrooms are often a bell curve (see below).

What you see in the image is a normal, distributed evenly, bell curve. Often we see this in our classrooms. We have a few academically high kids, then the bulk of our students in the middle, and a few on the low end. But this is what I am seeing more of today.

The middle is flattening out and we’re having more high achieving (yay!) but more low achieving students. Disclaimer: I do not and will not mark or grade students based on a bell curve! The bell curve is serving as an image only for my educational thoughts. Why the change? I can’t be 100% sure. Some of it might stem from the pandemic and the lack of educational support students received during the three years. There has also been a huge change in the expectations of parents, when it comes to learning and education. Many countries still teach that all learning is the responsibility of the school alone. Third possible reason, we are living in a information overloaded society and education is no longer teaching fundamentals, but often used as political arenas.
So, what does this all mean?
You are going to probably have a large gap of students in your room with “those who will finish the work” and “those will not finish the work”. For example, during our math block, we are covering subtraction up to 10. We started about a week and a half ago. Today, I have 4 or 5 students finished (it’s about 10-12 pages). Another group of 8-9 with a couple pages left, 3-4 that are about halfway and 3 that have completed 2-3 pages. Yes, a couple were sick a day or two (that’s normal) but honestly, the bell curve is alive and well in our class.
What Am I Going to Do With the Early Finishers?
Here’s a short list:
- give them more math
- let them play a game
- read a book
- give them free time
- something else?
The problem with some of the above suggestions is that your same students will probably finish early on a daily or weekly basis. The students who do not finish are going to watch the students who are finished play games, which can be demoralizing. Or, they see the early finishers doing more work, and think, “no, thank you”. Can I suggest a possible combination of all of the above? Also, you want to consider the time it will take to complete the “early finisher” activity.
Early Finishers Choice Board
I came across this idea a few years ago and every year I need to “rethink or tweak” it, based on the needs of the current class. An early finishers choice board allows students, who finish early, some independent time to work on other paths of learning. I see many choice boards with different activities, and you need some activities that will be easy for YOU to prep.
Early Finishers Choice Boards can contain activities such as:
- word searches
- crossword puzzles
- word sorts
- task cards
- card games
- I Spy related activities
- building/creating tasks
- catch up work – “ketchup”

Creating an Early Finishers Choice Board
I used PowerPoint, made cards and printed them. I purchased on Amazon a set of pocket charts (see above and below). They would slide down the whiteboard, so I added a couple magnets and they were fine. The cards were 3.5 inch x 3.5 inch. A bit too big. The next set created were 3 x 3 and they look better. I can actually fit 4 across now.

What Type of Activities Do You Put on the Chart?
Choice Board Activities are your decision. Some teachers add enrichment activities for certain subjects such as reading, math, STEM. Others add extra practice activities and other’s add game-type activities. When you are first starting, create easy prep for you. I start with dot-to-dot, word ladders, Lego™ task cards, blocks, etc. As the year progresses, I move into “challenges” (though not a lot of students get these done at the grade one level). You can also have “theme” choice boards, which was the reason that I purchased the set of pocket charts. I’m thinking of trying a seasonal board next year.
But I would like to suggest an opportunity for students to try some completely different activities, such as Genius Hour and Learning in Depth with a topic of their choice. Now this works better around grade three and higher. I have taught grades six to nine with Learning in Depth and have seen some pretty amazing projects. But, I digress (I will put write a blogpost on this).
You don’t want to be overwhelmed by the extra busywork.
Finally, Organization
Currently I keep the cards together with a big elastic band (alphabetical). As I don’t have more than fifty, it works. I have a mini accordion file folder that I purchased from the dollar store about 5 years ago. I use it for my class cash (hoot loot)! But I think it would be a nice compact way of storing them (unless you have hundreds). There are 13 compartments.

Assessment of Early Finishers Work
This could be a blog post in and of itself. You want to create tasks for your students that can be self grading and take as little time as possible for you to mark. If students have already completed their required work, do you need to be giving them more work. It seems that you would be the one who would “suffer” in this endeavour.
As well, there is an advantage to students finishing early. If they are “busy” doing something else, then you can work with those you do need your help. You can see that you do not want too many activities that require papers (for photocopying).
Depending on your grade and independence of students, you can use their early finisher’s time to have students pursue independent projects of interest (as suggested above, learning in depth, genius hour or project based learning). These projects might be short term or ongoing.
I would love to hear your thoughts on early finishers work. Do you use it or are you thinking about it? What do you put on your choice boards?
Happy Teaching!
Lori-Anne
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