Read on for the best ways to start things off on the right track by reviewing those classroom daily routines and rules!

Click to jump to…

• Why Review Our Classroom Daily Routines?
• Reviewing Classroom Rules and Routines
  • Classroom Rules
  • Daily Routines and Procedures
  • Rug and Lesson Expectations
  • Classroom Materials
• Reviewing Daily Classroom Routines

Why Review Our Classroom Daily Routines?

Think of classroom daily routines as the heartbeat of your learning environment. Consistent routines bring stability to our classrooms – they help our students feel grounded, secure, and ready to learn.

A post-break classroom can sometimes feel like the first day all over again – brimming with energy and anticipation. Reinforcing classroom daily routines serves as a rest, reminding students of the expectations and reestablishing structure and stability.

If you've been struggling with your classroom management, I also find that this is the perfect time to get things back on track. It's never too late to create clarity in your classroom expectations, and a return from a break is the perfect opportunity to have a fresh start with a challenging class.

This is actually a golden opportunity to hit the "reset" button and reestablish those essential classroom expectations.

Reviewing Classroom Rules and Routines

Okay, let's get into the details of the best ways to reestablish our classroom expectations!

I find that these are the most important parts of your daily classroom routines to review after a long break:

1. Classroom Rules
2. Daily Routines and Procedures
3. Classroom Materials
4. Lesson or Rug Expectations

I've got some activities to share for each of these that will make reviewing those classroom daily routines not only easy, but even dare I say… fun!

Classroom Rules Review

Teachers should be reviewing their classroom rules all the time, but it's especially important to do it clearly and explicitly after a long break. This is the most important place to start if you are trying to get a challenging class off on the right foot.

It might feel a little bit like you're doing back to school stuff all over again, and that's okay! Coming back from a break does require some of the same community building and expectation setting that happens at the beginning of the year. Students benefit from repetition, so it's totally okay to bring things back from the beginning of the year.

Here are two fun ways to review your classroom rules with your students:

Classroom Promise

Doing a classroom promise is a typical back to school activity, but pulling it out to review is a great strategy when behaviors are getting tough or if you're coming back from a long break.

Remind the students of each item on the promise, ask them for examples of what those look like in action, and then do some sort of “re-signing” activity – signatures, or decorating handprints, or some other craft are all fun options.

You can grab this Classroom Promise template for free right here!

Classroom Rules Craft

I'm a huge fan of using crafts for reinforcing learning. And this rules craft is about as cute as they come! Each petal is one of your core classroom rules. Students can draw a picture on each petal, and paste it together.

You can get this craft template in my TPT store right here!

Daily Classroom Routines and Procedures

It's so easy to let our routines slide as the year goes on. Lining up gets noisy, materials get sloppy, and transitions get chaotic. After a break is the perfect time to get back on track with these classroom daily routines!

I think going over each routine of the day in a methodic way is the way to go. Remind students of the expectations for each procedure, have them practice it, and then praise them every time they get it right!

Routines Review Checklist

I made this free routines review checklist for you to use as you go through and practice all of your classroom daily routines. Check the box off once students show mastery. And don't worry – take as much time as you need to move through the list!

Grab this free editable anchor chart template right here!

Classroom Schedule

Another great review to do is a reminder of your classroom daily schedule. This is especially helpful for younger students, who need visual reminders and who appreciate the structure of a daily routine.

This classroom schedule booklet lets students cut and paste, draw, or write in each part of their daily schedule as a reminder of what to expect in their day to day school life. You can get this template in my TPT store right here.

Rug and Lesson Expectations

The goal of all of this is for students to be ready and able to learn. So reviewing our expectations for our teaching times is a must-do after a long break. Students may have forgotten how to participate appropriately in a lesson, and luckily there are a few fun ways we can help them remember how!

Listening Body

Help students think of ways their bodies can support them while they learn – what should their ears, eyes, hands, brains, and bodies be doing? Now of course, this is going to look different for each student. Encourage students to really think about what would help them most to listen and learn.

This anchor chart helps students think about each part of their body and what they need to help them focus. This anchor chart activity is available in my TPT store right here!

Classroom Materials

Reviewing how classroom materials should be treated can be very helpful after a long break. By this time of the year, it's pretty typical for our pencils and crayons to look a little worse for wear.

Whether or not you're restocking with new materials, reviewing with students the proper way to care for their materials is helpful part of reviewing classroom daily routines.

Classroom Materials Anchor Chart

Making an anchor chart with your different classroom materials and asking students to remember how they should be treated is a great way to review classroom materials procedures with your class. Ask students the correct way to handle each item and add it to the anchor chart.

This anchor chart activity is available in my TPT store right here!

Reviewing Classroom Daily Routines

I know it's hard to come back from a break, but these ideas will definitely help the transition go a whole lot smoother! Don't be afraid to take some time to do this important review work. Learning can't happen until your classroom daily routines are running smoothly, so this will be time well spent.

Which review activity are you going to try first? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
Laura

Resources For You:

Articles For You:

11 Fantastic Week of Kindness Ideas To Try In Your Classroom

How to Celebrate Winter Holidays Around the World With Your Students

The Best Activities To Build Classroom Community To Try Now

10 Growth Mindset For Kids Activities Your Students Will Lov

The post The Best Ways To Review Classroom Daily Routines After A Break appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

These are such important questions to ask at the beginning of the year. And luckily, there are lots of children’s books to help us teachers out! Reading books aloud to your new class is one of the best ways to start setting expectations and reinforcing classroom rules.

Read on for 15 amazing read alouds to teacher classroom rules and routines!

Want some resources that are planned and ready to go? Check out my Rules and Routines Activity Bundle!

Classroom Rules and Routines

Establishing our rules and routines is extremely important at the beginning of the school year. Not only does it help our classroom run smoother in the months to come, but structure and rules actually help students feel safe and secure.

A piece of advice I always give to new teachers is to write out a list of all their routines and procedures and rules. A lot of times, you don’t realize until you start writing just how long that list can be! There are materials to take care of and store properly, transitions to organize and manage, rules about talking, sitting, bathroom-going… it’s a lot to think about! Making a list ahead of time will help you to plan out just how you’re going to teach all those things to your new students.

Now, there are lots of ways to establish our rules and routines, and I have a whole blog post with ideas right here. But children’s books are such a valuable tool, they deserved their own special list on the blog.

Children’s Books About Rules and Routines

These are some of my favorite books to use to teach about our classroom rules and routines. Not only can you use these books in the first weeks of school, but they are great for using to review your classroom routines and rules throughout the schoolyear. (Because let’s be honest… we will constantly be reviewing those routines and procedures!)

I’ve divided these into sections to help you choose which books will be best for you: Your New Classroom, Classroom Materials, Classroom Rules, A Listening Body, and Classroom Routines.

Your New Classroom

School’s First Day of School: The school is nervous about all the children coming for the first day! The day starts out difficult for school, but everyone is having a great day by the end. This is a fun book to talk about the different spaces at school and what they are used for.

A Letter From Your Teacher: A wonderful book where a teacher shares her hopes and dreams for the year. This book is great to introduce the classroom as a space for learning and sharing.

All Are Welcome Here: This book celebrates classroom community. You can use this to start setting expectations of inclusion and equality.

Classroom Materials

The Day the Crayons Quit: The crayons are tired of being treated poorly, and they decide to quit! A great book for talking about the correct way to use materials.

Too Much Glue: A little boy doesn’t know how to use the glue properly and ends up with a great big mess! Such a good way to talk about classroom routines for using glue and other art supplies.

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!: A little boy makes a big, big mess with his paints. A cute story you can use when talking about the classroom rules for using paint.

Classroom Rules

Don’t Eat Your Classmates: Penelope the dinosaur keeps accidentally eating her classmates…until she has an experience that teaches her how it feels to be eaten! This book is all about the importance of self-control and treating others with respect.

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 what they do in their new classroom matters!

What Should Darla Do?: A book that lets students decide what choice Dara should make to decide the outcome of the story. This is a great book for talking about making good choices.

A Listening Body

My Mouth Is a Volcano: A very relatable book about a little boy who can’t help but call what he wants to say! A great book for talking about classroom rules during group lessons.

Personal Space Camp: Louis learns about the importance of respecting personal space. This is a helpful book to talk about personal boundaries and what we mean when we say “hands to yourself”.

Lacey Walker, Nonstop Talker: Lacey Walker loves to talk and chat and visit. But when she loses her voice, she learns some important lessons about great value of listening. A great book if you have an extra chatty class.

Classroom Routines

Germs Vs. Soap: A funny and playful book about germs trying to avoid getting washed off of dirty hands! A great book to explain the importance of good hand-washing to students.

Just a Mess: Little Critter likes to leave everything in a big mess. In this book, he learns the importance of picking up after himself and keeping things tidy.

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

Routines and Procedures

It’s important to take time at the beginning of the year to teach your rules and procedures thoroughly. While it might seem like it’s taking a lot of time, it will ultimately save you so much time in the future.

But the most important thing to remember about teaching your classroom rules and procedures is that it’s not one and done. Students will need practice and review throughout the whole year – so hold onto these book ideas for when you feel like your class could use a little refresher on the classroom rules!

Want more rules and routines resources? Check out my Classroom Rules and Routines Activity Bundle!

Which book are you going to try with your students this year? Let me know in the comments! 
xoxo
Laura

Resources For You:

Articles For You:

5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas

21 Amazing Ideas for Activities on the First Day of School

The Best Activities To Build Classroom Community To Try Now

The post Classroom Rules and Routines: The Ultimate List of Children’s Books appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

This article is all about activities to build classroom community!

In a rush? You can check out my Classroom Community Builders MEGABUNDLE on TPT right now:

This product may contain affiliate links. I make a small commission on products purchased through these links.

How To Build Classroom Community

There certainly isn’t one correct answer for how to build community in the classroom. But over the last 9 years of teaching, I’ve developed a way that works for me every time. When I start to think about my classroom community and the classroom culture I want to create, there are three pieces that I find to be the most important. Here’s my magic recipe if you want to learn more about how to build a classroom community:

1. Back to School Classroom Community Builders: Use classroom community builders that help students feel seen, included, and celebrated during first few weeks. 
2. Rules and Routines for Classroom Community: The way these are established are going to have a big impact on how we build classroom community as a group. 
3. Build Classroom Community with Kindness: Having explicit discussions around treating each other with kindness is important for establishing a positive classroom community. I find it’s helpful to revisit these conversations throughout the school year.

Let’s dive into each one of these and I’ll share some specific activities to build classroom community!

Back to School Classroom Community Builders

Back to school season is the perfect opportunity to think carefully about how to build community in the classroom. The activities you do during the first few weeks of school are an important part of setting the tone and helping students feel safe and happy in their new space. Here are some of my favorite activities to build classroom community during that back to school time:

First Day Feelings

Talking about our feelings on the first day of school can be especially helpful to start building classroom community. Starting a new school year is a lot to process! It’s always a good idea to have some first day of school activities that help students feel safe in their new classroom environment.

On an anchor chart, write or draw some different feeling emojis (happy, nervous, excited, sad, etc.). Lead your class in a discussion about how feelings are normal and everyone’s feelings are different. (“First Day Jitters” and “A Tiger Tail” are two great book choices to read with this activity)

Give every student a sticky note to write their name and let them put the sticky note on the anchor chart next to the feeling that they most identify with.

Heart Maps

Creating heart maps is another activity to build classroom community at the beginning of the year. Share with your class some things that are important to you in your life and add them to your heart map. Then have each student create their own heart map filled with the things that are most important to them. Displaying these can help students get to know each other, and it can help you learn about the passions and interests of your students.

Friend Scavenger Hunt

Make a checklist for students that includes items like “A classmate who has two younger siblings” or “Someone who has the same favorite color as you” or “Someone who went to a different school for kindergarten than you”.

Students then go around the classroom trying to find a student’s name to write next to every item on the list. This gets them walking around, meeting new people, and talking to each other! This is definitely one of my favorite activities to build classroom community!

You can snag this Find a Friend Scavenger Hunt for free right here!

Celebrating Names

Celebrating names is a wonderful way to help students get to know each other at the beginning of the year. Also, it provides an opportunity to promote inclusiveness and respect between students from different cultures. Reading the book “Your Name Is A Song” is one of my favorite activities to build classroom community. I love these bookmarks to go with it!

Reach for the Stars

If you are looking for a gorgeous bulletin board for the first week of school, look no further! This display celebrates the goals that students have, and helps establish a community of learners.

These resources and more are available in my First Week of School Activity Bundle!

Rules and Routines for Classroom Community

Establishing your classroom routines and rules is a key part of building classroom community. Every classroom needs routines and procedures to create a structure that children can learn and participate in. And of course, teaching classroom rules is a huge part of classroom management. Classroom rules help children feel safe. Therefore, introducing them thoroughly and revisiting them often is so important to build classroom community. Here are some of my favorite ways to introduce those oh-so-crucial classroom rules and routines!

Class Promise

First, Lead your students in a discussion about what a great class should look like, sound like, and feel like. Then, consolidate all of their ideas on an anchor chart. Finally, have children decorate a handprint, heart, or cutout person of themselves to go around the class promise, sealing everyone’s pledge to one another. I like to display the class promise in the classroom for the whole year, as a visual reminder of the classroom community we committed to.

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, anchor charts are great activities to build classroom community because they involve the whole class and create a helpful visual.

Classroom Material Flipbook Craft

Crafts are another way to teach these important skills. Emphasizing care and respect for the classroom environment is an important part of building classroom community. This craft helps students learn how to care for their classroom materials.

Classroom Rules Flower

Crafts are great activities to build classroom community! This craft is a fun and engaging way to introduce your classroom rules. Each student contributes a square of paper with something they’re committed to trying. Then take all the squares of paper and put them together to make a class display. 

Classroom Map

Helping students students feel at home in their new classroom can help them feel like part of their classroom community. A classroom map can help students learn where everything is.

All these resources and more are included in my Routines and Procedures Activities Bundle!

Build Classroom Community with Kindness

Every year, I make sure that kindness is set as a standard for how we treat one another in the classroom. Encouraging kindness between students is hugely important if you want to build community in the classroom. Here are my favorite classroom community builders that really help to make kindness an everyday expectation.

Bucket Filler Chart

The book “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?” provides a helpful metaphor for kids to understand the importance of how we treat one another. Reading this book can help inspire students to be a part of building classroom community by being a “bucket filler”.  Another fun activity idea is to have students brainstorm ways they can be a “bucket filler” at school and record them on an anchor chart.

WOW Word Wall

One of my favorite ways to build community in the classroom is by creating a WOW Word Wall. First, we talk about words that are important to our classroom community. Some examples might be “kind”, “respectful”, “helpful”, or “patient”. Then we post them on our WOW Word Wall. After that, I am constantly on the lookout for students exemplifying the words we discussed. Throughout the day, I take time to acknowledge what I noticed them doing, and then they get to place something special next to that word. You could use a sticker, or a star – I like to use these beautiful plastic butterflies. Later in the school year, I turn it over to the students, and they get to be the ones who acknowledge their classmates doing great things.

Kindness Chain

This is a fun and easy way to promote kindness in your classroom. Have a time during the day when students can share ways that their classmates were kind to them. For every kindness that gets shared, add a colored strip of paper to a paper chain. My class always loves to see how long the chain becomes!

Kindness Bingo

If you’re classroom community is needing some help, this can be a fun activity to get things back on track. Create a kindness bingo board with different acts of kindness in each square. As you notice students doing the activities, they get to color in a square on their bingo board. I like to make it a challenge to see if the whole class can reach a certain number of combined bingos so that it doesn’t become an individual competition.

Kindness Shout-Outs

Another fun way to build classroom community is to create a way for students to leave each other positive notes or messages. Shout-outs, positive notes, or compliments can be made available for students to fill out and give to other students. Some teachers even set up student mailboxes for these to be delivered! (Make sure to personally check notes before they are delivered to ensure that they stay positive.) 

To get your hands on these kindness crafts and resources, plus many more, check out my Kindness Activities Bundle!

I hope you now have lots of ideas for activities to build classroom community! Spending time with your students to build relationships and community is always worth it! 

Which activity are you excited to try out with your students? 
Xoxo 
Laura

Resources you may be interested in:

Other articles you may be interested in:

21 Amazing Ideas For Activities On the First Day of School

Week of Kindness

5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas

10 Powerful Community-Building Ideas

The post The Best Activities To Build Classroom Community To Try Now appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

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!

This product may contain affiliate links. I make a small commission on products purchased through these links.

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!

You May Also Enjoy Reading:

How To Teach Routines and Procedures In a Primary Grade

21 Amazing Ideas For Activities On the First Day of School

Week of Kindness

The post 5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas appeared first on Love Grows Learning.