In this instructional video, the presenter outlines a step‑by‑step approach for preparing kindergarten through second‑grade students for independent work. She begins by emphasizing the need to match expectations to children’s developmental stage. The core of her system is a color‑coded bin setup: each student has three bins (plus extras) filled with hands‑on activities that develop fine‑motor, matching, and attention skills. Students select a bin, bring it to a table, and work on the task while a timer (1–3 minutes) runs. The teacher models the activity, works alongside the child, and gradually fades support as the child gains confidence. Once students can work independently for short periods, the teacher introduces errorless‑learning workbooks—highly engaging matching tasks that are designed so the correct answer is built into the material (e.g., Velcro pieces that only fit in the right spot). These workbooks serve as a bridge to more traditional paper tasks. Throughout, the presenter stresses that independence does not happen overnight, requires structured routines, and must be adapted for each learner.
Chapters
When I shared my independent work setup, the number one question I was asked was from teachers who said their students weren't quite ready for independent work and what could we do. Well, let me share. First, let's look at what's developmentally appropriate. Let's make sure that what we're asking of our learner is actually appropriate for their developmental age and stage. Second, in my classroom setup, you'll see this is my independent work and right around the corner are these colorful bins. If you followed along with my classroom, you know I love to color code and every student has a color. This year is no different. Every student has 3 bins and you'll find them right here: orange, red, green, yellow, purple, blue, and pink. The black are extra. All of these are hands-on tasks that the kids can do independently. When a child isn't ready for sit-down table work, we start with bins. We bring them to the table and then we play with them in a tray. They're fun and hands-on, but yet we're building skill. Not only are we building fine motor skills, or we're building matching skills, or whatever the activity is teaching, but it's also teaching sustained attention. I have one student who's simply working on matching colors. I've got another one working on fine motor, one with pop beads, one putting pegs in the hedgehog. Meanwhile, I've got other students who are able to count pegs and who are able to build. I normally have success with this because as a kindergarten, first grade, and second grade teacher, most of my students who are not able to do independent work yet are just coming from early childhood or preschool, and so they're used to center-based rotations, or they were in a very different environment than my classroom. My classroom is very structured and very organized. And so because of that, we start simple with expectations. A student will pick their bin, they'll bring it to the table, and then they will be able to play with it, and we will set a timer. We'll set a timer from anywhere between 1 minute and 3 minutes, it just depends on the student. And here's where the real success comes in. We model the expectation. We play alongside the student. And then slowly, as the student knows what to do with those objects, they start becoming more independent, we fade ourselves. Once we're successful with students playing alone independently for about 1 to 3 minutes, then we start pairing ourselves with some work tasks. I start with Errorless Learning. I love these easy matching workbooks. These are so much fun for students. They are highly engaging, they're highly preferred, and I'm gonna show you. This set comes with one for every day, and this is the transportation set. This is the newest one in this series. I'm so excited about it. Look, we just simply put the school bus in front of the school. It's errorless. The bus can go literally nowhere else but in front of the school. We can build a racetrack. Look at that. This piece could go here, here, or here. Anywhere there's a piece of Velcro, and that's what makes it errorless. The boats don't have to go in a specific order, and eventually there's going to be some very minor matching. Look, we've got color matching right here. If my student is not yet matching, I really don't care about the colors. I just want them to get the piece on the board. And that's what we do. We have fun, we play games, we do things that are interactive, and we get our students to really start to love learning and love independent work. And slowly they know the expectation because we've modeled, and they will become independent. The trick about independent work is that it doesn't happen overnight. It's very rare that I get a student that I can just sit down with a paper and say, "Hey, you go do this." It's not a general education classroom. I should expect that I should have to modify and some change some things, right? So that's what I'm doing. I'm setting the expectation, I'm modeling the expectation, I'm pairing myself with that item, and then I'm slowly fading myself away.
