In our classroom, we do a lot of partner and group work.  Sometimes it can be tricky matching kids that will work well together.  There are times that I let kids choose their own partners, but we often end up with more play than work that way.  I have a name box that I often use for these situations.  Sometimes I randomly group students by drawing their names, but that can waste time.

I like the idea of a partner wheel.  I set this one up so I could pair stronger readers with those who need a little more support.  We all have those students who are better off not working together, so just put their names on the same wheel, and they will not ever be partners, no matter how many times you turn and use the wheel.  I saw this idea on Pinterest.  The original blog by Karen Moler has templates to easily make your own partner wheels.  They didn’t work for me, because I have 28 students so I needed to put 14 names on each wheel. I had a little trouble getting the wheel divided up evenly, so if you can use the templates that will be a real time saver. You can find her blog post here.

There are lots of ways to organize students for group and partner work, including using craft sticks and other tools. You can read about some other ideas here.  What secrets do you have for grouping students in your classroom?