At the beginning of the year the students and I talk about (and list) how "we" want our friends to treat each other (No hitting. No name calling. etc...). By the end of their list I am able to put all of their ideas under my 3 major rules:
1) Respect others and their property.
2) Use good manners at all times.
3) Work as a team!
I use a composite of PeaceBuilders and Power Teaching:
1. Show Respect
2. Make Good Decisions
3. Solve Your Own Problems
4. Raise Your Hand for Permission to Speak
5. Make Your Dear Teacher Happy
I have to say, I'm not so sure about rule #5 - I don't want to be the modivation why students behave, but last year I had a class that tested me each day. It was all I could do to maintain calm and in control, which justified the rule for me in the short term.
Whatever you decide to make as your rules, go over them, act out examples, read books about them, etc. As a transition back into our classroom before I start teaching, we review the rule every time! This sounds like a lot, but it works for me, and focuses the students toward the learning environment. I have hand movements and pictures for each of the rules. I had to become so stern with my last class - the students HAD to participate at this time. We do teacher/student points (as done in power teaching), and I will give teacher points if they don't do it properly. The time I invested in my classroom management totally paid off!
This is a poem I use with my kindergarten. We recite it each day for the first few weeks.
For the hallway I use other poems..one is called "Marshmallow Toes"
Walking through the hallways,
Everyone quietly goes...
Being respectful all the way
Walking on our Marshmallow Toes!
If the students are quiet in the hallway, I have a container of colored marshmallows...they each get one when we get back to class.
We have three main ones: Be safe; Be respectful; Be responsible. More specifically, these translate into:
1. Listen to the teacher and follow directions.
2. Take turns listening and speaking. Raise your hand when you want to speak.
3. Take good care of class materials and clean up when you are finished.
4. Use your quiet inside voice in the classroom. Save your big voice for outside.
5. Never hurt anyone on the inside or the outside.
I use a book called Boris Bear Remembers His Manners to teach the rules. It is great for kinder. I often use a bee theme or a bear theme in my room and it works well if you get bee stickers to reinforce the rules at the beginning of the year. This year, I am also going to read Kevin Knows the Rules to lead into teaching about manners/rules.
Since we are talking about rules, I was wondering, how do you teach them? Do you sit down with the children and go each one and explain them or do you teach them as they need to be taught throughout the day? I do both, but it seems so tedious at first (depending on the class) to go over such a lengthy almost abstract concept on the first day of school if I sit them down to go over them. What do you do to make it easier?
For our rule, "Show Respect", one teacher showed me a chart she makes at the beginning of the year, and I'm going to try it this year. It's a T-chart, based on her GLAD training. One side is labeled with the picture of an eye, the other has a picture of an ear. She talks about and reads books about respect. After a few days of school, she asks students what we see when we see respect/how we can hear respect. She keeps the chart up for the first 6 weeks of school, adding to it and referring to it constantly. She ties it in with our 1st Open Court unit, School, where we talk about what a noun is (I don't get why we teach nouns the first weeks of school, but whatever!). She adds that to the chart - we respect people, places, things, ideas.
At the beginning of the year the students and I talk about (and list) how "we" want our friends to treat each other (No hitting. No name calling. etc...). By the end of their list I am able to put all of their ideas under my 3 major rules:
1) Respect others and their property.
2) Use good manners at all times.
3) Work as a team!
I normally read a book by David Shannon and begin the discussion about how we want to treat others in our classroom. After the students make a list of "rules" we put them into my 3 rule categories. For example, the students will normally say, "We don't want to hit others" or "We don't want to kick others." These fall under rule 2. If they say, "Don't take away someone's crayons" it would fall under rule 1. I will have my 3 rules laminated and prepared to the side.
Discussing the rules and sorting the students' suggestions gives them ownership and lets them actively decide what they want our classroom to look like. Basically, they are creating the same rules that I have already made; I just compact all of their suggestions into three simple rules.
I love books! My favorite is Bono the monkey. It's a blackline master book. Bono comes to school and does everything wrong. He hangs from the ceiling, he takes kids toys, he talks when he's supposed to be quiet, etc. The students in the book correct Bono by saying, "Oh, no Bono! (sit quietly, share the toys, etc)." Eventually, he learns the rules.
I have a stuffed animal monkey I use in a similar fashion to the Gingerbread Man story - I hide clues around the school and we go try to find him. It's our way of touring the school. You can even make smaller copies for your students. The author has a website. It doesn't have much info about the book, but here it is:
I just bought the Kevin book, which I will use for the first time this year. Books by Cheri J. Meiners are great. She has a series of books called "Learning to Get Along." Here's some that I have:
Share and Take Turns
Respect and Take Care of Things
Listen and Learn
Know and Follow Rules
I got this from another board from a teacher. She uses the Circle of Respect where each child has a clothespin with their name on it. The rule is to "Be nice;work hard." It about covers everything! On the first day we all pledge to do our best to follow our rule and place our clip on the circle of respect. We have yellow and red choice boxes for when we do forget to do the above and we have to place our clips onto that box.
You should purchase the book "kevin knows the rules" on amazon.com. In the beginning of the book, the author explains how to use the book with your class. Then the book itself is a read-aloud with adorable illustrations that introduces the rules. Then you can practice with your kids in a fun way.... it is almost like an activity book the way it is done...it makes it fun...
I was at a kindergarten conference several years ago and picked up the following rules that I have used:
1. I will always do my best.
2. I will never bother others that are learning.
3. I will never hurt others on the inside or outside.
As I introduce these rules on the first day, I have the children discuss what they think each rule means. Children are always able to give a fairly accurate interpretation. Then for at least the first month of school we say the rules aloud. Also if a child breaks a rule I have him/her repeat the broken rule and what he/she was doing that broke the rule.
Brigid-- I act out the rules with my class. We practice it. They also love watching me act out what to do/what not to do. They LOVE correcting me when I do a rule wrong when I'm acting it out for them and its a LOT of fun (I try to make it blatantly obvious that I'm mis-behaving). Then I have the kids come up-- "show me how we walk in the hall/line up/ ask a question/etc" . The kids love the positive reinforcement they get for getting it right (I make a big deal out of it-- especially at the beginning).
Hope that helps.
07-29-2008, 07:52 PM
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