Start Off with a Great Year with a Rules and Procedures Checklist

Oh the joys of planning out your rules and procedures in your classroom. It is SO important to begin planning how you want your classroom to run before the first day of school.

My first year, I made the mistake of not having a very good thought out plan of how I wanted the classroom to run. I definitely learned that procedures are so, so important to teach. And don't make the mistake of thinking they will learn them on one day. Keep practicing, and practicing until your students have got them down. It may seem very redundant, but it will save you come December!

When it comes to teaching the rules and procedures, you should model, have a student model, and then let everyone practice the procedure. If you need to, you can have multiple students model how the procedure should be done. And it's ok for you to do this process every day.

I love to re-evaluate at the end of each year to figure out what I could do differently to make the classroom a more positive environment for learning. I take some time in the summer to figure out what could be done. I also think about what other teachers have done to make their classroom successful.

I have created a checklist to help me remember all of the rules and procedures that we would experience throughout the day. Below is an example of the checklist, and you can download the checklist at the bottom.

You can download Checklist here!

Don't forget to continue teaching the rules and procedures even after the first week. 

If this posted helped you, sign up for future emails and free downloads! I would love to hear your feedback if this checklist has helped you become better prepared for the beginning of the year! Comment below. 

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Praise Your Students with Brag Tags

My first year teaching, I struggled with finding a good behavior management tool that the students would like. I wanted to make sure that I praised the students for their positive behavior, but I didn't want to go broke doing it.

I decided to try out Brag Tags by A is for Apple off of Teachers Pay Teachers. From the very first day that I began to use them, I fell in love. I decided that I wanted to use the Brag Tags to praise my students, and I also wanted the students to be able to take the Brag Tag home and show their parents. I printed out the brag tags, and laminated them. If a student received a Brag Tag, it would be turned into a necklace with string. I would make sure that the class congratulated the student that received a Brag Tag. The students were also able to wear the Brag Tags throughout the day, and they could even keep them at home to show off to their parents. I wanted to make sure that I created them to be able to go home as another great way to brag on the students to their parents.

At the beginning of the year, I would give out Brag Tags randomly to students who were caught showing great behavior. If I saw a student sitting quietly, they would received a Brag Tag for that. As the year progressed, I started to focus on all of the students working towards a Special Brag Tag, or the Awesome Day Brag Tag.

Everyday, we would end our day by giving a student an "I Had an Awesome Day" Brag Tag. I felt like this was a great way to end our day. It really taught the students to be supportive, even when they didn't get the reward; this took a while for some students to grasp, but by the end of the year, they were very supportive. We would also have days where we would have a Special Brag Tag that the students were working towards. At the end of the day, the Special Brag Tag would be given out.

I highly recommend trying Brag Tags this year. I plan to continue using Brag Tags in my classroom this year. It is a great way to praise students for their positive behavior, and teaches students to support others even when they did not receive a Brag Tag.

If I did not answer a question that you may have, comment below. Don't forget to follow Mrs. Peay's Kindergarten Adventures!