Activities and Lessons
for Beginning the School Year

Creating Class Rules ~
Renee Goularte

On the first day of school, have students help write the classroom rules. Try starting out with the question, "Why Are We In School?" and use that list to generate another list of needs, called "What We Need To Do" - this second list can become the classroom rules. Keep both lists posted in the classroom, side-by-side, for reference.

 Why We Are Here

- to learn something different
- to work
- to read books
- to make friends
- to be smarter
- to play with friends
- to challenge ourselves
- to listen
- to work toward a goal
- to have fun!
- to share with each other

 What We Need

- to pay attention

- to listen to the person who's talking

- to be friendly to people

- to be helpful

- to ask questions

- to take care of the classroom

~~ Read more about this idea in "Social Reality in the Classroom." ~~

 

Another option is to use the teacher's rules, but to have students discuss what the rules actually mean and to list examples of behaviors that support the rules.

 

return to Shared Ideas
return to main page