Our Classroom Rules

During the first week of school, we read a book about a character who is not very good at following the rules and discuss the consequences of such behavior. There are a few books that work really well for this topic, but I usually choose one of these three:

After reading the book, we talk about the importance of having and following rules and then I introduce our very own classroom rules. The rules that I use came from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Classroom Management Freebies. Thanks to this wonderful resource I was able to create this cute little display.

Just like Mrs. Ricca, I like to use the Whole Brain Teaching Method to help the students memorize our classroom rules. They think that these are hilarious which is great because they end up having all of our rules memorized by the end of the first week. Unfortunately I can't find a video of this method right now, but it is pretty much a series of hand motions that go along with the rules. We say each line together while doing these motions:

Rule Number One (hold up one finger) 

Listen (Cup hands around ears)

When someone is speaking (make chatting mouths with hands)

Rule number two (hold up two fingers)

Follow directions (Make a fish swimming motion with hands)

Quickly (shoot pointer finger up in the air as fast as you can)

Rule number three (hold up three fingers)

Raise your hand (raise hand)

to speak (make chatting mouths with hands)

Rule number four (hold up four fingers)

Be a caring friend (give yourself a hug)

Rule number five (hold up five fingers)

Always do your best work (Make a muscle with your arm)

We ended our discussion by sorting good vs. poor choices which you can read more about in my First Week of School post!