“I’m Done! Now What?” As an early elementary teacher, I am sure you hear this phrase at least once (if not twenty times) a day. Early finisher activities are a great way to keep your fast finishers engaged while allowing students who need a little extra time to finish the task at hand. These file folder games provide meaningful practice and enrichment for a variety of math and literacy skills.  Discover how to assemble, organize, store, and use these early finisher activities!

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How to Assemble Your Early Finisher Activities

Assembling your early finisher activities is a breeze. You can either choose to prep all twelve months at one given time, or you can opt to prep them monthly. I personally prep them at one given time, so I can quickly swap them out when a new month begins. 

This is also a great project to give to a classroom volunteer! 

There are 10 literacy and 10 math file folder games per month, 240 file folder games in all! 

To make each fast finishers folder, glue the cover page to the front of a manila file folder. Next, attach the two work mats on the inside of the folder. Last, adhere an envelope to the back of the file folder. This envelope will eventually house all of the game pieces for that specific game.  

After that, it is time to laminate the entire folder along with the cards/games pieces.  

Pro tip: make sure to leave the fast finishers file folder open when running it through the laminator.

Next, cut the envelope open with an X-acto knife and cut out the game pieces using a paper cutter.

Once the early finisher activities are laminated, I like to add an adhesive hook and loop dot to the envelop flap so the pieces stay secure inside. 

The laminated folders and cards will last several years, so this is one of those steps you only have to do once.

How to Organize and Store Your Early Finisher Activities

I have tried several methods for organizing and storing these early finisher activities. There are many ways you can go about doing so in your classroom, but here are just a few tried and true tricks I have learned over the years. 

The best method I have found for storing the games is to place each month of file folder games into a mesh zipper bag (16.7 x 12.4 inches). After all twenty file folders are placed inside the bag, I use glue dots to attach a label of the month to the front of the bag.

I then add the mesh bag to my monthly bins so I can easily grab and go year after year. 

You can also use magazine boxes, bins, drawers or these clear scrapbook cases as an alternative way to organize and store each month. 

In order for students to access them, I have found book bins, magazine boxes or file folder holders to work best. When a new month rolls around, I pull out the mesh bag, grab out all twenty games and put the 10 literacy games in one book box and the 10 math games into another book box.

Grab the labels for FREE here!

How to Use Your Early Finisher Activities

These early finisher activities are meant to provide meaningful practice and enrichment for a variety of skills. The goal is for students to use them when they finish an assignment early, but they can also be used for other times throughout the day including morning work and centers. 

As we are establishing classroom routines and procedures at the beginning of the year, I like to make sure we review how and when to use these file folder games. Although they were made with the intention that students are excited to complete them, you also want to establish that they are not there for those that simply rush through their work. 

We talk a lot about producing quality work and when it is a good time to say we are done and move on to our early finisher file folder games. It is especially helpful to role play this. 

Speaking of role playing, I also like to model how to use and care for the file folder games. We discuss how to grab a fast finishers folder from the box, as well as how to put the pieces back in the envelope before returning it to the bin. 

These Fast Finisher File Folders will keep your early finishers on task, while the rest of your students complete their work!

Don’t forget to download the labels for FREE here!

Early Finisher Activities for the Whole Year

Grab all 240 early finisher activities you can use all year long here! 

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