5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas

Your classroom routine and procedures game plan is so important – not only at the beginning of the year, but all the time. So what are the best ways to actually teach your classroom routines and procedures so that students understand them? Read on to find out! (For more about me and my teaching experience and journey, click here.)

Coming up with your classroom routines and procedures can feel daunting! But actually knowing how to teach them is even more important. Your classroom routines and procedures will do you no good if your students can’t understand and remember them. Well, I want to show you that you can teach them in ways that are memorable but also tons of fun!

This post is all about the best ways to teach your classroom routine and procedures!

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The Importance of Classroom Routines

It’s no secret that classroom routines are an extremely important part of starting off the school year. In fact, I definitely spend the first month focused on teaching classroom routine and procedures and rules before I focus on teaching academics!

On top of that, experienced teachers know that they need to keep returning to and practicing those classroom routines and procedures all year long. I definitely know the feeling of realizing my students have completely forgotten the expectations we set at the beginning of the year!

Therefore, it is so important to help reinforce those habits many times throughout the schoolyear. The more often you can slip in a review of a classroom routine and procedures, the less time you’ll have to spend correcting behavior later on.

All of that means that it’s very helpful to have a bunch of great procedure and routines activities ready to go for all year long! And today I’m sharing lots of fun ways to teach these crucial classroom routines. Of course, we know that students learn best when the activities are hands-on, visual, and highly engaging. So I’ve gathered together 5 ideas that will make sure your students are having fun while mastering all of their classroom routines and procedures.

1. Classroom Routine and Procedures Visuals

Providing clear visuals that students can refer to every single day is such a helpful way to reinforce your classroom routine and procedures. There are so many gorgeous classroom decor ideas out there to give you lots of inspiration for how you could do this in your own classroom!

For example, some teachers have special classroom routine and procedures bulletin boards that are a big and obvious reminder of classroom expectations:

In addition, many teachers have a classroom schedule posted that changes to show the flow of each day. I love assigning a “schedule reader” each week as one of our classroom jobs – my students absolutely love having this job:

Some of the most importance classroom routines elementary students need to know can be made into individual cues. It can be really helpful for certain students to have these posted on their desk or in a personal folder:

2. Classroom Routine and Procedures Anchor Charts

We definitely can’t leave out anchor charts when we’re teaching classroom routines and procedures! The reason I love anchor charts and posters so much is that you create these together as a class. This is important because it can really help students feel that they have input and ownership with their classroom routine procedures.

Not only that, but they can be posted in the classroom as reminders for as long you need them! Also, anchor charts are a really helpful way to remind students of a certain classroom routine or procedure that they need practice with part-way through the school year.

Here are some fun examples of classroom routines elementary school teachers have taught using anchor charts:

Classroom Procedures for Materials:

Classroom Rules for the Rug

Classroom Morning Routine

Clean Desk

Classroom Map

If you’re looking for more anchor chart templates you can use this year for your rules and routines, check out the Rules and Routines activity bundle here!

3. Classroom Routines Crafts

If you’re worried that teaching your classroom routine and procedures is going to be boring, then you should definitely consider trying some crafts!

Students absolutely love the opportunity to be creative and artistic. Furthermore, incorporating projects can help students absorb new learning in a hands-on way. I have always found that crafts are one of the best ways to help something really “stick” with students.

Here are some of my favorite crafts for classroom routine and procedures elementary teachers have created:

Classroom Materials Flipbook

Classroom Schedule Booklet

Classroom Rules Quilt

Pencil Poem

For these craft templates plus more, check out my “Classroom Routine and Procedures Craft Templates” product here.

4. Classroom Routine and Procedures Games

Learning and practicing with games is always a good idea. Now I know what you might be thinking… Laura, how can there possibly be a game about routines and procedures? Well, teachers are very good at being able to turn anything into a game!

Still don’t believe me? Here are some fun games to try when teaching and reinforcing your classroom rules and routines:

Find the ____ in the room:

This is a great game for reviewing. First, tell students that you need volunteers to find certain important parts of the room. Then call on students one at a time and then tell them to go touch a specific place in the classroom. Possible instructions could be:

“Where we keep our lunchboxes”

“Where paintbrushes go after they’ve been used”

“Where your pencil goes when it needs to be sharpened”

“Where the bathroom passes are kept”

Students will love being able to get up and roam the classroom to answer your questions! And they’ll get a great review of the classroom routines and procedures you’ve taught them so far.

Timed Test

Get your students hyped up about classroom routines with this fun challenge!

First, choose a routine that you want your students to practice. It might be their morning routine, or lining up for recess, or their steps before dismissal.

Explain to them that you’re going to time them to see if they can beat the record for how quickly it gets done! Make sure you set some rules. For example, no running, no talking, and no bossing others around are some good ones to set.

You can have them try it a few times in a row to get a lot of good practice, or you can do it each day for a week to see if they can improve their time!

Desk Fairy

This is a popular way to help motivate students to keep their table spot and classroom materials neat and tidy.

First, tell your students that sometimes the Desk Fairy comes at night to check to see which students are taking good care of their classroom materials. Sometimes she leaves a little treat for student who are doing a great job!

Then periodically, take a look at your students’ table spots. Sprinkle some glitter on the ones that look neat and tidy to show the Desk Fairy has been there. You can leave little incentives like stickers, pencils, or crayons on the desk for students doing a stellar job.

The Desk Fairy is so useful, because she can visit anytime you think your class needs a little extra motivation to keep their classroom materials neat!

Helpful or Distracting Sort

This game is great for reviewing classroom rules. Write out a bunch of behaviors on sticky notes. For example, “Poking a friend to ask them a question” Or “Calling out to a friend across the room” Or “Raising your hand when you want to speak”.

Then invite students to categorize them into “Helpful” or “Distracting” behavior. You can do this on your whiteboard or on an anchor chart, with two different categories where students can place their sticky notes. 

You can play this game as a whole class looking and deciding together. Or you can make enough for each student to get to place theirs, and then have the class chime in with whether or not they agree with the choice.

5. Classroom Routines and Procedures Books

There are so many wonderful Back To School children’s books, and these can be a wonderful way to help students understand expectations and boundaries. They also allow students to step into someone else’s shoes and generate empathy for the characters and what they are dealing with. This can impact the choices they make in the classroom later on.

These are some books that are great for teaching classroom routines and rules:

What If Everybody Did That?

This book gets students thinking about the effect their choices can have. It helps them see that every action adds up and that what they do matters!

No, David

A sweet book about a little boy who is struggling to learn the rules at school.

What Should Darla Do?

A book that lets the students decide what choice Darla should make to decide the outcome of the story.

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates

A cute story about a dinosaur who keeps accidentally eating her classmates… until she has an experience that teaches her how it feels to be eaten!

The Day the Crayons Quit

In this story, the crayons go on strike because they feel like they are not being treated properly. This is a great book for reinforcing proper use of classroom materials.

Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill

A great book for teaching about the rules of safety and reinforcing your school’s fire drill procedure.

I hope you now have lots of fun ideas to kick off your classroom routine and procedure teaching this year!

What's one fun teaching idea from this post that you're going to try out?
Xoxo
Laura

And don’t forget, you can get your ready-made templates for anchor charts and crafts for teaching classroom routines, rules, and procedures right here!

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How To Teach Routines and Procedures In a Primary Grade

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