The first couple weeks of school will set the tone for your classroom. Take the time in the first couple weeks to explicitly teach your classroom rules and procedures. You’ll be building classroom community, introducing classroom routines, and making sure your students know what is expected of them.
Confused on where to start? Or simply looking for some fresh review ideas? Here are six tried-and-true tips for teaching classroom rules and procedures.
1. Starting with Establishing Good vs. Poor Classroom Decisions
Before you dive into the details of how to line up and how to get ready for lunch, don’t forget to start simple. Start by teaching what good and poor behavior choices actually look like. Use visuals like the one above included in my classroom rules and procedures unit. Create a T-Chart where you can ask students which actions are good versus poor decisions. This will help lay the groundwork for a positive and safe classroom environment.
2. Practice Routines Over and Over
The key to smooth classroom procedures? Practice and repetition. In the first two weeks of school, practice everything! Think simple… how to unpack their backpacks, how to transition between ELA and math, how to turn in their worksheets. Students need to DO the routines before they can remember them. This consistent modeling practice will help your classroom routines stick.
3. Introduce Emergency Procedures Calmly and Clearly
It’s incredibly important not to leave off your emergency procedures and expectations. Make sure to include lessons and activities for these, too, but in a way that feels calm and age-appropriate. Talk students through what each drill means, what they will hear, where they will go, and what they will have to do the entirety of the drill. When they can understand the how and why behind each emergency procedure, they’ll be more likely to respond calmly and correctly. Try letting the students act out each emergency procedure then writing the details after on a classroom rules and procedures worksheet.
Don’t forget… Emergency drills such as lockdowns and tornado drills can cause worry and fear within some students. Make sure you learn which students may need changes to their emergency procedure drills.
4. Reinforce with Positive Praise
Once you’ve established all of your classroom rules and procedures, keep reinforcing them with positive feedback. If you catch students performing these expectations, make sure to positively praise in front of the class. Praise them for following routines, point out strong behavior, and make a big deal out of the small wins. As students learn the ins and outs of your classroom, these positive reminders will help reinforce their ease in the classroom.
5. Turn Lessons Into a Collaborative Opportunity
Let the students teach each other! One idea is to turn all of these new details into a peer to peer activity. Let them work in a group to brainstorm expectations for things like technology time, morning routines, and even whole group lessons. Each group will get a classroom routine. Then, they’ll use graphic organizers (such as the ones above from my Classroom Rules and Procedures Unit) to illustrate these procedures and write about them. As an added bonus, they’ll present their learnings aloud to their classmates!
6. Make Sure to Cover All Learning Styles
Every student learns differently, so it’s important to include learning style variations in your classroom rules and procedures lessons, too! You’ll have learners who need to write their learnings down, so ensure you have many opportunities to write about rules and expectations. You’ll also have auditory learners. Your direct lessons and their classmates’ collaborative presentations will be great for these learners. Your kinesthetic learners need to act out scenarios and walk through routines.
Classroom Rules and Procedures
