Classroom Volunteer Ideas for Teachers

I have always been fortunate enough to get a couple of really awesome parent volunteers. If you’re thinking, “Well, that’s just not gonna happen for me,” you might be missing out. When I really think about it, it’s not just that I ask, really. It’s that I am organized about it. If you ask for volunteers, and then they come into your classroom, you need to be prepared. You cannot act surprised or at a loss of what to do when a volunteer comes in and is standing in front of you while you’re trying to teach. You just can’t. So, be prepared, or they won’t return. So I thought I’d share a bit about how you can get volunteers in your classroom and keep them all year. Yep, all year.

This one is probably a no-brainer. The first step? Just ask and keep track. Once you do, you’ll have a list you can refer to of volunteers that want to help. If you only have a couple, jot their names on a sticky note and put it somewhere near your work area so you can contact them when needed. Once you’ve got a couple of volunteers in your back pocket, USE THEM!

Provide At-Home Classroom Volunteer Jobs

You know those tasks that many teachers take home (the ones it doesn’t take a teaching degree to do)? Send them home!!! Many families work 8am-5pm. They want to help, but can’t leave work to cut out your laminating or alphabetize your sight word cards. Sometimes I just send out an email asking. No forms, no google doc, just a simple, “Hey families! Who wants to cut out some laminated things this weekend and be my hero?” You would be surprised at how many reply that they do. So, get yourself a Volunteer Take-home Binder you can send the work home in. You can grab the Volunteer Binder Kit freebie by signing up for my free weekly newsletter below:

In the binder, you can keep a zipper pouch with anything they might need. Adult-size scissors, tape, gluestick, highlighters, white out, pens (red and black), sticky notes/sticky tabs, rubber bands, stickers and a pencil. You can’t assume a family has any of these things lying around the house, so make sure you provide them. Label your supplies so they have a better chance of making their way back to you if they’re left behind.

For quick, one time jobs that don’t need repeating, you can just hand-write directions. Simple, yet effective. This blank page is in the Volunteer Binder download.

For tasks you know will be repeated, you’ll want to provide a typed up set of directions. I typically get 1 or 2 parents that are willing to correct spiral math review work all year. IT HAS SAVED MY TEACHING SANITY. This is easy, but tedious work and it’s definitely something most adults (or even older teenage siblings) can do. If you have a specific way you like to correct work, just provide a detailed guide to correcting. This is helpful for your substitutes, too!

Keep a Classroom Volunteer Prep Work List Handy

If you’re super lucky, you might get a volunteer that wants to come into your classroom. Of course, if they’d rather be working with students, that’s a little easier. They can simply roam the room if kids are working in small groups or independently. You can ask them to read with a kid in the hallway. But if you have anyone that wants to do prep work for you (or if that’s what you’d prefer for a volunteer–especially when you’re doing a whole group lesson and there really isn’t much else for them to do), you can and should prepare a prep work list to reference when they come in. I use this as my own “to-do” list all year, but I write it so that anyone volunteering can do use it.