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Hey friends. Welcome back to the Firstieland Podcast. Last week in Episode 2, we talked all about how classroom routines can help you create a calm, organized, and productive learning environment. Today, we’re taking that one step further. I’m gonna share 40 specific routines and procedures that you’ll wanna teach during the first few weeks of school—from how kids enter the room to what to do during a fire drill.
These routines will set the stage for a smooth, low-stress year for you and your students. So let’s get started.

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Before we get into the episode, I wanna let you know that I’ve got a free checklist that goes along with today’s topic. It’s a simple printable that you can use to make sure that you are teaching all the important routines right from the start.
So after you listen to today’s episode, be sure to grab that in the show notes.

Okay, so I have 40 routines that you should be teaching in kindergarten and first grade during the first month of school. It’s a lot, so I’m gonna try and keep this episode as short as I can. So I’m gonna talk fast. Here we go.

Number one: Morning chores. What are the first things that students should do before entering your classroom? Teach your students to put away their daily folder, sign in for lunch or attendance, or wash their hands. Create a morning routine for students to follow before they enter the classroom—whatever works for you and what you want them to do.
A great idea is to have a visual reminder on the wall to help students remember what to do. That will set the tone for the day and remind students that they’re in school and they’re ready to learn.

Number two: Greetings. Meet your students at the door each morning and greet them. Make them feel welcome and show them that you’re happy to see them.

Number three: Entering the classroom. Teach your students how to enter the classroom. They should walk into the room quietly. Some kids like to announce to everyone that they’re entering the room in some way. They shout, they’re yelling hello, running, bouncing. You want to discourage this kind of behavior so they don’t disturb any of the work that’s already in progress in the classroom—because kids are coming in and out of the room all day long, not just in the morning.

Alright, number four: Morning work. You should establish a classroom procedure for some kind of morning work. What are your students gonna do when they first enter the classroom in the morning? Some options for this are a morning worksheet, morning tubs, puzzles, Play-Doh, or even just drawing. You can have different themes on each day, such as Monday Math, Tuesday Tubs, Wednesday Reading—that type of thing. Create a routine so students know exactly what to do when they first get to school.

Number five: Lunch count. Create a spot in your classroom for students to sign in for lunch. You can use a pocket chart, a clip system, baskets, or some other place where kids can put their names for either buying or packing lunch. And then decide how you’re gonna relay this information to the cafeteria.
I can’t tell you how many times I forgot to send my lunch count to the cafeteria, and I would get that dreaded phone call at nine o’clock saying, “Where’s your lunch count?” So think about that. Are you gonna call them on the phone, or do you have to send the information with a student? Create a classroom procedure for this so that you remember to do that every day.

Number six: Attendance. Establish a simple way of taking your attendance every day and how you’ll get this information to the office. Are you gonna have students sign in somewhere in the classroom? Are you gonna have a student helper take the attendance down to the office? Make a routine for that as well.

Number seven: Daily folders. Kids should have some kind of daily folder that they bring back and forth to school. This is where they can put their finished work that they take home, and they can bring important papers or notes back to school in this folder as well.
Make a special basket where the kids will turn their folders in each morning, and then establish a classroom routine for yourself as well—to check these folders each morning in case there’s important papers that you need to see immediately.

Number eight: Journals. I think it’s a good idea to create a daily journal writing routine in your classroom. This can be when students first come into class in the morning or maybe right after recess. You can use a daily journal, and that can really be an effective way to get some extra writing practice into every day.

Number nine: Announcements. If your school has morning announcements, teach your kids what to do during this time. Students should stop what they’re doing, fold their hands in their lap, and listen without talking. If you teach students this classroom routine, that’s gonna ensure that everybody can hear the important announcements anytime they’re made during the day. Your kids will know exactly what to do when announcements come on.

Number ten: Carpet time. Teach kids how to walk to the carpet without pushing, shoving, or running. They need to be taught your expectations for sitting on the carpet. Can they sit on their knees? Can they lay down? You have to decide how you want students to sit and then teach them this classroom procedure on their first day of school so that they know what to do every time they come to the carpet.

Number eleven: Daily calendar. A great idea is to have some kind of calendar time built into your daily schedule. It’s a really good classroom routine for elementary kids. You can teach students so many skills in a really short amount of time with a daily calendar. I used to have my calendar on a bulletin board, but it had a lot of components to it. When I moved from kindergarten to first grade, I didn’t have a big bulletin board like that anymore, so I had to go with a digital calendar, which I really ended up liking.
We could do patterns, days of the week, the months, we counted to 100, we did base ten blocks, tally marks, money, time— all kinds of stuff was in that digital calendar.

Number twelve: Tissues. Have a specific place where you keep the tissue box for your kids. Teach students your expectations for how to use the tissues. And what I mean by that is: Can they get more than one? Can they get up anytime to get a tissue? Emergencies happen sometimes when a tissue is needed like right now, but some kids are gonna use getting a tissue as an excuse to leave the carpet or not do their work and hang out at the tissue box. So make a routine for what you expect for that.

Number thirteen: Trash. Create a classroom routine for throwing away trash in your room. It’s a great idea to have mini trash cans in the center of your tables or even individual trash cans at students’ desks. Kids can throw their trash away as they’re working without having to get up and go to the trash can all the time.
That’s gonna keep your room neat, and it’s gonna eliminate a lot of unnecessary movement in the middle of your lessons. Then at the end of the day, you can choose one student helper to empty the little mini trash cans into the main can in your room.

Number fourteen: Pencil sharpening. What’s your classroom routine going to be for pencil sharpening? Are students allowed to use your electric pencil sharpener, or is that gonna be your responsibility? Usually young kids have difficulty using a pencil sharpener like that, so it might be a good idea to have a can for sharpened and broken pencils.
They can exchange their broken pencils for a sharpened one in the morning. Another great idea is to let kids have their own little mini pencil sharpeners in their supply box. I had that in my room. They had to have a little mini pencil sharpener that had a lid on it, and they just sharpened their own pencils as needed and then emptied that little container out into the trash when it was full.

Number fifteen: Lining up. Create a classroom routine for lining up. A good classroom routine for elementary is to give each student a number on the first day of school. If you have students always line up in numbered order, that’s gonna eliminate problems of cutting in line and pushing to be first. Kids will always have the exact same spot, and they can line up quickly without any problems.

Number sixteen: Questions. Show kids what you expect when asking a question. Teach kids to raise their hand and wait to be called on before speaking. One of the biggest challenges kindergarten and first grade teachers have is kids blurting out to say something or ask a question.
A really great book to read to kind of establish this rule is My Mouth Is a Volcano by Julia Cook. But make sure that you teach what you expect when kids need to ask a question.

Number seventeen: Visitors. Establish a classroom routine when a visitor comes to your room. You’re gonna be interrupted by other teachers, maybe a parent or your principal during the day. Teach kids to stay in their seats and wait quietly while you finish your conversations.
They should not be running up to the visitor to give them a hug or interrupt your conversation or get crazy with the other kids when a visitor comes to your door.

Number eighteen: Fast finishers. All of the kids in your room are gonna work at a different pace, and you’re gonna have some kids finish before others. So create a poster or something like that with ideas for your fast finishers. Some ideas that kids could do quietly are reading, writing in their journal, or drawing.
You can also have a fast finisher shelf with things like puzzles, Play-Doh, or other quiet activities that kids can do while they’re waiting.

Number nineteen: Attention signal. It is important to establish a classroom routine for getting your kids’ attention. This can be a bell that you ring, playing a music box, or some kind of a callback. A callback is when the teacher says something like “Peanut Butter” and the kids stop what they’re doing and say “And Jelly.”
So they know to stop talking and listen to you when you give them that signal.

Number twenty: Transitions. Teach students how to transition from one activity to the next. Sometimes kids are gonna think that every time an activity is over, they can begin a conversation with a friend. Teach kids how to transition quietly, such as walking to and from the carpet, putting their papers away before beginning another lesson—all of those kinds of things. Show them how you expect them to do that quietly, without talking and visiting.

Okay, we’re halfway through. Here’s number twenty-one: Bathroom routines. First of all, you need to determine a schedule for taking your class to the bathroom during the day. Usually once mid-morning, maybe right after lunch, and another mid-afternoon bathroom break is probably sufficient, so have that set up as a regular routine.
But throughout the day, kids are gonna need to go to the restroom, so it’s a good idea to create maybe a hand signal that kids can show you instead of interrupting your lesson. In my classroom, kids would raise their hand with their fingers crossed to show that they needed to use the restroom. I could see what they needed and quietly nod my head yes without stopping my lesson. So it was great for kids to use when I was meeting with a small group so they didn’t interrupt the lesson.

Number twenty-two: Washing hands. Teach kids how to wash their hands effectively. Take them to the restroom or have them wash their hands at your classroom sink and show them step by step how to turn on the water, wet their hands, use one pump of soap, and wash their hands. I like to teach my class to hum the “Happy Birthday” song to themselves while they wash so they can really get their hands clean.
Then teach them to throw the paper towels in the trash can and not on the floor—because they will do that.

Number twenty-three: Mailbox. A good classroom routine is to give kids their own mailbox. Teach them to put their papers in their mailbox when they’re finished, and then at the end of the day, they can get their own papers and put them in their daily folders to go home. It saves you a lot of time if they can put their papers in their folder instead of you.

Number twenty-four: Chairs. Kids should be taught the classroom procedure for pushing in their chairs. I always told my class that our chairs were like our cars and our desk was our garage—and we would never leave our car in the middle of the street because it might cause an accident. So we also had to put our cars in our garage at school so nobody would trip or fall over it in the room.

Number twenty-five: Completed work. Make some kind of classroom procedure for turning in completed work. Maybe have a special basket where they can turn in work and teach kids to turn it in facing forward with their name on top. That really helps you when you’re grading papers.
You can even have your kids turn in their work in numbered order or in alphabetical order, and it’ll just make it so much easier and more efficient for you when you’re grading papers if all the papers in the basket are in order, ready to go for you to grade and put that grade right into your grade book.

Number thirty-one: Learning centers. Most kindergarten and first grade classrooms have learning centers, and kids are gonna need to be taught the rules and the procedures for using centers every day.
I’m gonna have a whole podcast series about how to use learning centers in your room, so we’ll talk more about that then.

Number thirty-two: Supplies. How are you gonna handle it when kids need supplies? It’s a great idea to have a place in your room where kids can get their pencils, glue, crayons, or scissors—stuff like that—when they need them.
I used my art center as a hub for extra supplies, and whenever I gave kids a new box of crayons, I would collect some of the old ones and put them in small little Sterilite drawers that were labeled for each color. So if a kid said, “I don’t have a black,” or “I don’t have a red,” they could just get it from one of the drawers of the extra crayons.
You can also have containers with extra glue sticks, erasers, and pencils so you can just grab them easily if needed.

We’re getting close to the end here.

Number thirty-three: Asking for help. Establish a routine for how to ask for help during independent work time. Are you gonna have kids raise their hand? Are you gonna let them come up to your desk or your table?
Think about how kids are gonna get assistance when you’re working in small groups with other children. Sometimes it’s a good idea to have a student helper that can help kids when you are busy working with other children. It’s important to establish rules for this so that students aren’t interrupting your small group lessons.

Alright, and now finally—the end of the day classroom routines.

Number thirty-four: Cleanup. Create some kind of end-of-the-day cleaning routines. Make sure that your room is neat and tidy by having kids pick up papers from the floor and put things away.
I think a fun game to play is Mystery Trash. The way you play the game is: you, the teacher, spy one little teeny piece of trash on the floor, but don’t tell the kids where it is. They have to work together to pick up all the trash from the floor—even the teeniest, tiniest pieces. Whoever picks up the mystery trash gets some kind of a prize.
It could be a piece of candy or something as simple as being first in line at dismissal. But it really works, it keeps your room nice and neat, and the kids love it.

Number thirty-five: Desk cleanliness. Your kids should keep their desks and their supply boxes clean. So create maybe a weekly routine for kids to empty any trash from their desk and their supply box to keep them neat and tidy.

Number thirty-six: Parent pickup. How are your students gonna go home at the end of the day? Are they gonna be picked up by parents? You’re gonna need to teach your students this routine.
If some of them go home with their parents, will they be called to a specific pickup location at the end of the day? Maybe you’re gonna need to walk students to that destination. Teach students what to do when they’re being picked up by parents.

And then of course, number thirty-seven: Bus routines. Some kids are gonna be riding the bus home, so you’re going to need to teach the kids the bus routines for lining up and how to find their bus at dismissal.

And now—emergency classroom routines.

Number thirty-eight: Fire drill. One of your classroom routines right at the start of the school year should be to teach kids what to do during a fire drill. Show them how to line up quickly and silently. Teach them to stay with your class and where to stand outside during the drill.
Teach them that they have to be silent—because if it was a real fire, they’d have to be quiet so they could hear the directions from the firefighter.

Number thirty-nine: Tornado drill. Do you have tornado drills at your school? We did at mine. So teach your students the exact procedure. If you’ll need to go to the basement or to the hallway, show kids how to walk in line down the steps or how to wait quietly in the hallway—whatever your routine is at your school.

And then finally, our very last procedure—and unfortunately, we do have to have this one:

Number forty: Active shooter drill. Teach your students what to do in case of an active shooter on your school campus. In our classroom, we would pull all the shades, lock our classroom door, and use a Bolo Stick to secure the door. Then the kids would sit in the very back of the room silently with the lights turned out.
You need to teach your students exactly what to do during this emergency situation.

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Okay, that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope that this list of routines gave you a clear roadmap for what to teach during those first few weeks of school. And remember—consistency is key. Taking the time to teach these procedures now is gonna save you so much time and stress later on.
So don’t forget to grab your free checklist in the show notes. That’s gonna help you make a plan, and all of these procedures are listed on that free checklist. So if you didn’t get a chance to take notes, they’re all there for you.
And if you found this episode helpful, be sure to follow the show and leave a quick review. It really helps more teachers find us.

Alright—
So until next time, remember to make learning feel like play.
And I’ll see you next week in Firstieland.

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