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Since I embraced the blogging world this summer I have been shamelessly blog stalking/ following any blog out there to get any ideas I can!  I have found a lot of common themes that a lot of people are talking about. 

1) The Daily 5 & Café

2) The Spectrum Behavior Chart

3) Policies and Procedures

4) The Target Dollar Spot

5) Decorating on the Cheap

I think I have blogged about 3 out of the 5 already.  My blogging bucket list is almost complete!

Today I wanted to focus on number 3, Policies and Procedures. 

When parents first meet me they ask me what my rules are for my classroom.  I tell them I don’t have any rules, we just follow our school rules.  The rest is all taken care of in policies and procedures.

I mentioned previously that CCSD had us take New teacher trainings (which by the way I completed 4 years ago).  Well in the very first New Teacher Orientation they had Harry Wong come and be the keynote speaker.  We all received a copy of his book  The First Days of School.  Mine has a lot of sticky notes which I review every summer the sticky noted pages.  Not that it isn’t a glorious book but I have to prioritize my time!

His book is broken up into 5 units.  The unit I re-read EVERY summer is Unit C- Classroom Management. 

It goes over having your classroom ready, how to introduce yourself to your class, how to arrange and assign seating, when and how to take roll, an effective grade book, an effective discipline plan (rules and consequences & rewards),  and how to have students follow classroom procedures.

In his book he gives a list of many of the procedures to rehearse with students.   Here is my list combined with his list. 

Each summer I look at my previous year’s document to see if that is really how I still want that procedure to be done. 

Only I’m moving next school year so a lot of these will have to be done once we go back for teacher report day because I don’t know what the school wide procedures are.   This is where I have to insert the reminder to myself that I can only worry about the things I can control. 

What are some of the procedures you practice with your students at the beginning of the year?