Reinforce Expectations with These 5 Tips
We all know that students will need to relearn expectations after a long break. But, what can be tricky is to make time to let those expectations sink in. None of us have time to re-teach all of our back-to-school lessons over and over throughout the year. So, today I have five ways to reinforce your expectations and procedures…the simple way!
Tip 1: Discuss the Why
As you share your expectations for how students should treat items in the classroom and treat each other, discuss the why behind each expectation. What would happen if students chose to not push in their chairs? What would it mean for our supplies if we didn’t put caps back on markers? What if we didn’t put books where they go in the classroom library? Having these discussions promotes a deeper understanding of why the expectations exist in the first place. This creates an emotional connection for our students, so they are more likely to remember them long-term!
Tip 2: Make it Visual
Take your classroom expectations and turn them into posters. I recommend keeping the posters clean and to the point if your students are old enough to read them for themselves. If you teach kindergarten, and students cannot read the posters, use graphics to illustrate what your expectations are. We want our students to have visual cues to remind them of what they need to be doing throughout the year. This promotes independence. They don’t need to always be asking you what the expectation is. They can read it for themselves!
I have expectation posters modeled after The Essential 55 HERE.
Tip 3: Break it Down into Steps
For routines and procedures that require multiple steps, break things down for your students. I love using checklists! If you have expectations for what items should be in a student’s desk or book box, a quick checklist is a great way to keep students accountable and help them remember what you need them to do. If there is a certain order that steps need to go in when students are in your classroom library, create a checklist and tape it to the wall. Steps and checklists are great ways for students to remember expectations in bite-size chunks. Grab my student checklists HERE.
Tip 4: Write About Them!
As we know, it is easier to remember something if you put it into your own words and teach it to someone else. I love having my students write about expectations through the first few weeks of school. This makes excellent morning work, or even a great writing center for the beginning of the year. Create prompts that ask students to journal about how they would teach a new student to unpack, or create a story where a student did not follow the safety rules of the playground. There are lots of creative prompts that you can come up with that both review different genres of writing, as well as get students thinking deeply about the routines that you have! Get my ready-made prompts HERE.
Tip 5: Be Consistent
Finally, the best way to help your students remember all of the different rules and expectations that you have is to be consistent with how you expect things done. Some kids are going to arrive after a long break with everything at the top of their brains. Others will take multiple reminders to get back in the swing of things. Consistency pays off in the long-run for these kiddos, and saves you a lot of sanity.
Hopefully, these five tips give you some fresh ideas on how to reinforce your rules and procedures this year! I hope everyone is having a great back-to-school season, and that your class exceeds all of your expectations! Happy teaching! :)
