Making Rules

Classroom Rules: Define acceptable behavior withing a classroom and provide clearly defined expectations.

Everyone knows the importance of having clearly defined rules for children. We know that they are necessary to make children feel safe and give them security. A good system for rules and consequences will allow things to run much smoother for you and the students. But how do you go about creating rules that everyone understands?

Begin by having a conversation with your students about what things would make school really awful. Make a giant list on the board so that you can refer to it later. Then make a list of things that would make school great. Go back through the lists with the students and cross out the things that can't be controlled by you or the students because of school policy. Then talk through the other things on the lists. This is your chance to explain your expectations for them and what they can expect from you. Afterwards create a list of classroom rules. Make sure that you keep these few and simple. A great list would be: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Follow Procedures. It is important to go over the meaning of these big words. Every child's idea of respect will be different and you must make sure that they understand what you mean by respect. Make a list with them of what respect means. You can refer back to your lists that you made previously to help fill this in.