A Day In the Life of a Cart Teacher

My first year of teaching I was a traveling teacher, a cart teacher with no classroom. I traveled to different rooms all over the school and use different teachers’ rooms while they had plan. It was a bit chaotic and I had no tips to help me out! If you find yourself in this situation, I’ve rounded up my tips and tricks to help you be the best cart teacher ever! You can do this (and spoiler alert, once I got into my groove I didn’t hate being a traveling teacher!).

Where to put my stuff as a traveling teacher?

I was originally going to use a wheelie cart however, I was changing floors of the school too often to justify using an actual cart. With that said, I used this bag with a file crate like this one to keep things organized inside the bag.

Things to think about if you go the bag route: 

• I preferred a flat bottom bag so it stood up on tables/floors without falling over. The flat bottom also let me file crate stand up straight. 
• Don’t pack too much because you don’t want it to be too heavy!

Using another teacher’s space:

In each room, I asked the teacher if I could use a shelf to place a basket on. This basket held my students’ notes packets (with bell work printed inside). Students knew to grab the basket and get to work on the bell work problem without me having to have it projected.

Other Tools:

I occasionally had a canvas bin (like this cute one!) I carried around if we were using something like whiteboard pockets or scissors/glue. This made it easier to quickly clean up at the end without having to neatly organize my bag.

What exactly did I keep in my bag?

• outer pockets: pencils for kid, post it notes, granola bars for hungry kids, my water bottle, teacher pens, hand sanitizer (for me)
• inside: file crate with folders for each class (to put graded papers in), stacks of papers for the days activity (not notes, those were in packets that stayed in each room). My computer, the answer keys, clipboard, scissors, pens and referral papers.

Things I learned from being the cart teacher:

• kids won’t bring textbooks, and they will be farther from their locker as your classroom changes. If you need the textbook, ask the classroom teacher if maybe the books can stay in the room somewhere.
• Some classrooms/teachers are totally fine letting you use supplies. Some aren’t. So ask!
• Carrying around pencils for kiddos to use is important so bring a cup/pock for them.
• If you can leave things in a classroom (like notes packets) that will be helpful. This keeps kiddos in the room and not wandering ll the way to their locker to look for them.
• Let kiddos know where to find you during your plan time or after school if they need help. I had a desk in a little office space but I shared a homeroom class with another teacher. If they needed to find me, I told students to look in that classroom.

Pros to being a cart teacher:

• No classroom to decorate, clean or pack up at the end of the year
• You really see the school and meet other teachers
• Classrooms are set up differently so you get to see which layouts you love and hate.
• I got really good at digital (back in 2016, before it was cool lol) because having everything on my computer to project was way easier than writing on the board.
• I also learned to prep ahead with the notes packets because it saves me a stack of copies to carry around each day, batch prepping tips linked up here

Questions to think about or ask*

• tote, backpack or cart?
• Classroom management: what’s allowed, what’s not, how kids enter the room, bell work (especially because you enter the room at the same time the kids do)
• Seating chart: I made mine digital for each class design so I could keep track
• Keeping track of papers: where will you put them (file folders), how will you collect them (I’d open the file folder and that was my turn in tray)
• Subs: leave a note in your sub binder explaining your schedule (with a map)

*these questions are things yo already had a plan for in a classroom so just make sure to think about them as you are now changing things up!

What questions do you have about becoming a cart teacher? I’d love to help you brainstorm in the comments!