[00:00:00] Hey friends. Welcome back to the Firstieland podcast. If the first week of school feels a little bit like organized chaos, you’re not alone. This week in our Back to School series, we’re gonna talk about one of the biggest game changers for a smooth school year, which are your classroom routines and procedures.

When your students know exactly what to expect, everything from transitions to bathroom breaks gets easier. So let’s dive in and talk about how to set those routines from the very first day of school.

Hey there, I’m Molly from Firstieland, a former elementary teacher with over 30 years of experience in kindergarten and first grade. I’m here to help make teaching a little easier and a lot more fun. Whether you’re looking for the perfect read aloud, fresh writing ideas or simple classroom tips, I’ve got quick practical strategies you can use right away.

New teacher or experienced educator, there’s something for everyone in Firstieland, so grab your [00:01:00] coffee and teacher bag. Let’s get started. Okay. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know I’ve got a free checklist with 40 different classroom routines and procedures that’ll help you think through everything from lining up to your bathroom rules. So after you listen to the podcast, be sure to grab that, , free checklist in the show notes.

Okay, so first of all, what are classroom procedures? They’re basically your daily routines that help create structure. Minimize disruptions and make your day just a lot more efficient. Think of things like how to line up, how to transition from, you know, your table to the carpet, how to use different materials in your classroom.

That’s what classroom procedures are. So I think that on the first day of school, a good thing to do to start teaching about your routines is to have a daily schedule. [00:02:00] posted somewhere in your classroom that’s visible to the kids. When kids first come to school on that very first day of school, they’re not exactly sure what to expect, and the school day seems really long to them.

So I think that if you give them a little daily schedule that you post on your board or something like that, that you can go through as you’re moving throughout your day, it will help them understand where they are in the day, how much longer they’re gonna be there. Because really all kids wanna know is when do we get to have lunch and when do we get to play on the playground and when do we get to play at the centers in our classroom?

That’s pretty much what they’re wondering. And when do I get to go home? So a daily schedule will help that. I would post a schedule that was horizontal across my board. And I would have pictures of some of the different things that we were gonna do throughout the day. Maybe a picture [00:03:00] of the carpet for when we went to carpet first thing in the morning.

And then the next thing we were gonna do maybe was a reading lesson. So I might have a picture of a book, and then maybe I’d have a picture of a pencil for a writing activity. And then maybe I’d have a picture of the playground for recess or. a lunchbox for cafeteria and so on throughout the day until we get to the very end, and at the very end, there would be a bus.

Showing that we were gonna go home. And then underneath that schedule, I had a little person, like a little child, and I would move the child along that timeline of our schedule throughout the day. Every time we would transition to a new activity, and then that would help the kids kind of see where they were in the day, what was coming next, and how soon it was until recess or lunch or time to go home or whatever.

So it really helped them at the beginning of the school year understand what the day was all about and what our [00:04:00] routines were. So I think that’s a good thing to do at the beginning of the year. Just the first few days really is all you need that, and then to go along with your routines and your procedures.

It’s a great idea to just use all kinds of visual reminders throughout the classroom. It helps kids feel secure and it helps them understand what’s coming next, and what they have to do. For instance, when they come in in the morning or what their cafeteria routine is, or that type of thing. So if you have visuals, it helps them.

You want to model and review your procedures constantly. Every day for several weeks. Really practice routines over and over. It’s going to pay off later. The more you practice at the beginning of the school year. Go over your rules for things like lining up, transitioning to the carpet, and especially your bathroom routines.

You really want to review those over and over and over. Be very clear and [00:05:00] very consistent with your expectations and let kids know what they’re doing and also explain the why behind routines. Kids are more likely to follow those routines and procedures when they understand the purpose. For instance, if you give your kids maybe a number to line up and everybody lines up in the same order every single day, one through 20 or whatever, you can explain to them that the reason that you’re doing that is to avoid pushing and shoving and fighting about who gets to be the line leader or where their place in line is. They’ll always know exactly where their place is, so they feel secure knowing that I’m gonna line up in this exact same spot every day, and they understand why. So they’re more likely to follow those routines when you tell them the why.

A good time to go over those kinds of things is during your morning meeting, review your expectations. Get everybody on the same page. [00:06:00] Remind them of things like, remember, this is how we transition when we come to the carpet, or remember when we line up, we do this. And so then they’re more likely to follow those routines for you when you remind them and model.

You also wanna remember to communicate those routines to parents too. There’s things that they have to have a routine for, like dropping off their child, picking up their child, what the morning routine looks like. In my building. parents, if they were bringing their child to school, they had to pull up with their car in front of the building and they would stay in the car and whoever the teachers were on morning duty would walk up to the car, open the door, and let the child out of the car and shut the door.

Parents didn’t have to get out, they didn’t have to park, and it was just a routine. So make sure that you’re keeping them in the loop of the kinds of routines that they have to follow. Also. The more they know, the better they can do. And also, if they [00:07:00] know your routines in your classroom, they can support that at home as well and remind kids of that.

So what do you do if your students aren’t following the procedures? Well, you have to review. You have to review your expectations. That’s never a waste of time. The more you review, the more likely they are to remember and use logical consequences. It doesn’t. Makes sense to have kids lose recess. For every little infraction that happens in the classroom, you wanna use a consequence that kind of goes with whatever the problem was.

For instance, if you have a kid who’s horsing around in line when you’re walking down the hallway, we don’t have to take away their recess. A logical consequence would be “you are not doing what you’re supposed to in line so now you have to come to the front of the line and walk beside me where I can, you know, make sure that you’re doing what you’re supposed to do”, or “you have to go to the back of the line and be the last person to get outside for recess or [00:08:00] to sit down for lunch or whatever, because you are not following the rules about how to walk down the hallway correctly”. So use those logical consequences versus always punishing and taking away their recess and kind of be patient and a little bit flexible, especially at the beginning of the year because they’re just learning. They forget. Every student’s different.

So, you know, cut ’em a little slack in the beginning of the year. Some problem areas. Routines that are always a little bit of problem in the classroom lining up. Okay. That’s always a problem in kindergarten and first grade. Kids wanna push and shove to be first in line or to stand next to their friend or whatever that is.

So you need to model what a good example of lining up is and what a bad example of lining up is. Actually have kids get in line and show what it looks like if you’re pushing to get in first, or fooling around and talking. Talk [00:09:00] about how that’s not what it should look like. And then model what a good example of that would be.

Another problem area is the bathroom. Kids go in there and they wanna horse around, they wanna play in the water, they wanna swing on the bathroom doors and peek under the stalls and. All kinds of stuff like that. So you wanna review your rules and your expectations, make sure that kids understand what they’re supposed to do, and also if they have to leave the room in the middle of a lesson, or when you’re in small group teaching, you need to have some kind of a routine for that too.

So maybe figure out a hand signal that they can show you so that it doesn’t interrupt whatever you are doing. In my classroom, our hand signal was just two fingers crossed, and the kids could just, raise their hand at the carpet and cross their fingers. I knew what they meant and I could just quietly, nod, yes, you can go to the bathroom. We didn’t have to interrupt the lesson or anything like that. So use some kind of signal like that, that helps as [00:10:00] well. Transitions are always a common problem. Time in the classroom when you have kids, come from their table up to the carpet, they’re running, they’re pushing, they’re talking and fooling around, that kind of thing.

So. use maybe some kind of a cue that will tell them it’s time to transition or move, for instance, you could ring a bell or you could clap your hands in a certain way that kids know it’s time to stop what they’re doing and transition from the carpet to. Their table or maybe it’s time for centers to be done and it’s time to clean up.

When they’re leaving the carpet, remind them this isn’t social time. We’re not chit-chatting and getting together with our friends. We’re moving quickly and quietly back to our seats. And then also. A common problem area in your routines is dismissal. You know, you need it to be quiet during dismissal.

Kids have to hear if their name is getting called to go home with a parent or if their [00:11:00] bus is getting called to go get out on the buses. So review your expectations for staying seated and quiet, wherever that is. If you do that in the hallway or at their tables, or whatever it is that you do in your school.

You wanna make sure and review those common problem areas as well. So to recap just a little bit, you wanna set strong routines and procedures that just helps your classroom run smoothly. It’s gonna help your students feel confident and safe and ready to learn. Remember to post visuals, review everything daily. All of these routines, review them daily and adjust them as needed throughout the year. If you find that something’s not working, just change it. The little things that you do now are really going to make a big difference all year long. Alright, thanks for listening and if today’s episode was helpful, I’d love it if you’d follow the podcast and leave a review.

Don’t forget to grab your [00:12:00] free classroom routines and procedures checklist. The link is in the show notes and make sure you come back next week because next week we’re gonna actually go over 40 different classroom routines and procedures that you should be teaching at the beginning of the school year.

Alright, thanks for listening today. Remember to make learning feel like play, and I’ll see you next week in Firstieland.