How should I set up my elementary class in Kiddom?

The question we hear most frequently from elementary school teachers is, “Should I create separate classes for each subject, or keep all of my subjects and standards in one class?” If you teach many subjects to the same students, explore your options below and decide which is best for your teaching style and school structure.

Note: For schools/districts that use an integration system, such as Clever or Classlink, teachers will need to contact their school's admin or IT team to have more than one class for the same group of students.

One Class, Many Subjects

The comprehensive approach allows you to monitor student progress across all subjects in one place. This method enables you to maintain a single timeline with assignments spanning across multiple subjects, eliminating the need to switch from one subject to another.

In order to isolate by content area, you can still generate standards-specific reports, which allow you to filter standards by subject.

One of the drawbacks of this approach is that it is more challenging to identify areas for remediation when examining larger, combined reports. Another downside is that the unified timeline may be overwhelming to younger students.

Distinct Classes for Separate Subjects

Isolating subjects allows you to provide specific, targeted feedback for in-depth remediation in a particular subject area. With this method, students have separate assignment timelines for each subject and can focus on one at a time, making it easier to locate a specific assignment.

One advantage of this method is that specialists, such as special education, art, or physical education teachers, can be given collaboration access to view student mastery in other subject areas.

With Kiddom, it’s simple to copy a class to maintain certain settings across all of your classes, such as rosters, rubrics, social-emotional learning standards, or speaking and listening skills. You can then adjust the settings as needed after making a copy.

One of the downsides of this method is that students will need to navigate between the different classes to see all of their assigned work, which may create some stress for students who have difficulty with organizational skills.

Project-based or Interdisciplinary Classes

For a project-based model, you can create a separate class for each interdisciplinary project, incorporating standards for all content areas covered. For example, in a unit where students are creating simple websites about endangered species, you could create a class that includes standards from biology, ISTE technology standards, social-emotional standards, and English Language Arts standards. Another example would be to create an interdisciplinary STEM class that integrates math, science, and technical standards with ELA, social studies, and humanity standards. These approaches help students draw connections across content areas.

If you need any assistance with figuring out what will work best for you, please reach out to your CSM or our support team at support@kiddom.co, so that we can provide you with examples and help with your decision.