My best advice to any teacher is to start the year with simple, but clear classroom expectations. If students know what you expect out of them starting from the beginning of the year, you will spend less time stopping instruction to correct behavior. When students know the expectations, they will try their best to follow them. Ultimately, most students want to please their teacher, they just do not always know how.
I create my classroom expectations with my students, but I guide them to these three expectations. We spend a great deal of time reading back to school books that talk about school rules and friendship. You can find some of my favorite back to school books here. Read alouds provide students with background knowledge that they might not have otherwise. We will often draw/write about the books we read and do crafts. Read more about how I do that here. I also refer back to the books through out the year when students need a reminder.
I then guide the conversation towards the specific expectations that I want. I like to keep it simple with Be Kind, Be Safe, and Be Respectful. I think any rule falls under one of these categories. We make a Tree Map to place all the rules kids come up with. By allowing students to come up with the rules, they take ownership of the rules. By keeping it simple, it is to refer back to these rules, without calling out a specific child. If you notice Tommy is running, instead of calling him out, you can remind all kids what it means to be safe – we use walking feet. When I write the rules, I try to focus on what we do rather then what we don’t do. You can get a free copy of this poster and the anchor chart here.
Did you read all of my posts about getting ready for back to school?
❤ Creating a Caring Classroom Community
❤Classroom Routines and Procedures,
