This carefully curated list of classroom expectation activities is designed to establish a positive, well-structured learning environment for all students. The activities focus on cultivating respect, responsibility, and self-regulation while promoting a sense of belonging and inclusivity among learners. By incorporating these activities into your teaching routine, you can foster a collaborative classroom atmosphere that supports both individual growth and group success. Discover the perfect balance between setting clear expectations and encouraging social connections as you explore these innovative ideas!
1. Create a Classroom Contract
To create a classroom contract, begin by having conversations about respect, community, teamwork, and responsibility. Next, create an anchor chart to brainstorm what a great classroom looks, sounds, and feels like. Review the chart with students and pick the top ideas to form the contract. After having students sign the contract, display it in the classroom, and review it regularly.
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2. Interactive Classroom Rules Display
Create a classroom expectations display using editable expectation cards to clearly show students what is expected of them during lessons. Include visuals and descriptions of the desired behavior, such as raising hands or working hard. This approach ensures students understand expectations, promoting a positive learning environment.
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3. Class Rules Booklet
This simple classroom expectations booklet covers essential rules like raising hands, respecting classmates, and trying one’s best. Read the booklet to students or have them read it to you. This is an effective way to establish routines and expectations at the beginning of the school year while setting students up for success.
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4. Classroom Management Song
This fun and catchy song features six essential rules: raising hands to speak, walking in school, being nice, keeping hands and feet to oneself, cleaning up, and looking at the speaker. Singing will help kids more easily remember and follow these rules, contributing to a focused learning environment.
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5. Classroom Behavior Expectations Video
In this pretend-play activity, Gus the Alligator teaches children about classroom rules with engaging role-play scenarios. Kids learn important expectations, such as listening, sharing, and following directions, in a fun and interactive way, helping to establish respectful classroom norms.
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6. Code of Conduct Word Search
This word search puzzle contains various rules such as respecting the teacher, sharing, working quietly, and being kind. It can serve as the basis for a basic classroom discussion while helping children enhance their pattern recognition skills and expand their vocabulary.
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7. Classroom Rules Crossword
This crossword puzzle focuses on various rules and guidelines, such as restroom policies, being quiet in line, and cleaning up. It’s a simple way to help students review school procedures while improving their problem-solving skills, cognitive abilities, and reading comprehension.
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8. Slideshow of Classroom Routines
This editable slideshow presentation outlines common routines and expectations for students. By presenting these expectations in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand manner, students can become familiar with classroom rules from the beginning, helping to support classroom management throughout the year.
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9. Play a Review Game
To play this engaging board game, students can take turns spinning and moving across the board, picking up procedure cards that require them to read, apply, or act out different situations related to classroom expectations. This interactive approach encourages kids to apply the rules to real-life scenarios, helping them retain the information better.
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10. Read Aloud About Classroom Expectations
Students learn proper behavior by following Percy’s ten simple rules, while also discovering what not to do through humorous examples. This colorful picture book not only makes school enjoyable but also helps students develop positive habits, ensuring a smooth and successful learning experience.
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11. Interactive Worksheet on Rights and Responsibilities
Develop your own set of classroom agreements with this collaborative activity where students discuss their rights and responsibilities. Conducting this activity early in the school year fosters a sense of ownership, responsibility, and respect, helping to create a supportive learning environment.
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12. Assign Class Jobs
Foster a sense of responsibility and community in the classroom by assigning specific jobs to students using a classroom jobs template. This template includes various duties and offers opportunities for learners to connect with their strengths and interests, helping to create an organized and neat classroom.
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13. Test Student Understanding of Your Class Statement
Test and strengthen students’ understanding of your classroom expectations with this written assessment. Invite students to grade their own work using a colored pencil and add their own questions or personal notes about their performance before reviewing the answers as a class.
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14. Review Expectations with an Interactive Game of Charades
Incorporate a dynamic game of charades to help students understand your expectations while expressing their unique personalities. Place students in small groups and provide them with task cards featuring classroom rules to act out. Watch as they perform, smile and learn!
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15. Try a Social Story with Primary Students
This visual social story teaches classroom expectations and can be adapted to various grade levels, making it a great choice for children with autism or those needing explicit modeling. Why not read it aloud during the first few days of school, allowing students to internalize expectations early on in the year?
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16. Student Goals and Reflection Worksheet
Encouraging positive behavior is an important part of reinforcing classroom expectations. With these charts, kids can personalize their behavioral goals for the year. You can encourage them by focusing on positive actions, reviewing the charts frequently, and asking learners to reflect on their goals. When a student demonstrates consistent positive behavior, allow them to color a star on their chart and give them an award.
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17. Bingo Activity for Students to Review School Rules
These colorful Bingo cards cover various classroom rules and can be customized with specific prizes, fostering a sense of community and motivation. Students work together to earn bingo pieces, improving transitions, focus, and teamwork while keeping them excited and invested in their learning environment.
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18. Classroom Community Rules Coloring Page
These visually-appealing coloring pages about class rules offer numerous benefits, including reinforcing understanding, enhancing creativity, and developing fine motor skills. They also encourage mindfulness, and relaxation and can be used to facilitate discussion among students.
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19. Classroom Expectations Bee Craft
Most classroom rules can be distilled down to three core principles: Be Safe, Be Kind, and Be Your Best. Kids can unleash their inner artist by creating these colorful bees out of colored construction paper, before adding their own unique twist with glitter or googly eyes.
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20. Teach The Golden Rule to Build a Positive School Community
The Golden Rule teaches kids to treat others the way they would like to be treated. In this featured hands-on activity, students use pepper, water, soap, and sugar to represent people and different types of interactions. This helps them understand the consequences of their actions and encourages them to treat others with kindness and respect.
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21. Use the ‘Give Me Five’ Learning Management System
This “Give Me Five” poster can serve as a visual reminder to help students focus and maintain a well-organized classroom environment. By using this popular and effective technique, you can quickly communicate your expectations and regain students’ attention, reducing disruptions and increasing focus.
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FAQs
21 Effective Activities to Establish Classroom Expectations - Teaching Expertise? ›
Teachers can make their expectations known to students by directly teaching the classroom rules and procedures, providing opportunities for the students to practice them, and consistently responding to students' behavior .
How do you establish classroom expectations? ›- Create your own list of classroom norms and present them to the class.
- Have students contribute additional items.
- Have the class create their own items and decide on the list of norms as a group.
- Include these norms in the course syllabus.
- Present norms as a contract students must sign.
Teachers can make their expectations known to students by directly teaching the classroom rules and procedures, providing opportunities for the students to practice them, and consistently responding to students' behavior .
Which strategy can teachers use in the forming of expectations? ›Use portfolios, goal-setting, self-evaluation, self-reflection and peer feedback which increase both students' self-efficacy and their achievement. When students have high levels of self-efficacy, they choose more difficult goals and show greater commitment to their goals.
What suggestions can you give to improve the classroom set up for a more effective teaching learning process? ›- Having compassion and empathy. ...
- Creating a secure and dependable structure. ...
- Ramping up the positive. ...
- Supporting academic risk. ...
- Teaching active listening. ...
- Embedding strategy instruction. ...
- Building collaborative relationships.
They are called "The 5 Ps ," and are: Prompt, Prepared, Productive, Polite, and Position.
What are the top 3 classroom expectations? ›Three behavioral expectations you can set in your classroom from the start are when students should be seated, how to show respect to their classmates and teachers, and how to be attentive. Read on for a few tips on how to implement these guidelines and what the benefits will look like.
What are the 6 successful strategies for teaching to state standards? ›Focuses on six strategies: Universal Design for Learning, student-directed learning, assistive technology, peer supports, systematic instruction, and generalization.
What effective teaching strategies will you apply to engage students in setting goals and expectations? ›- Set clear expectations at the beginning.
- Sequence and link learning activities.
- Include clear instructions and transitions between activities.
- Detail any questioning and feedback that needs to take place.
- Provide formative assessment.
1) Define behavioral expectations so that they are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, positively stated, specific, and observable. 2) Make the expectations relevant and important to students by telling them the purpose of the behaviors. 3) Explicitly teach and review behavioral expectations.
What are five effective teaching strategies that teachers use? ›
- Student-Centric Discussion. ...
- Collaborative Learning. ...
- Flipped Classroom. ...
- VAK Teaching. ...
- Spaced Learning. ...
- Differentiated Instruction. ...
- Dual Coding.
- ENGAGE. In the first phase of the learning cycle, the teacher works to gain an understanding of the students' prior knowledge and identify any knowledge gaps. ...
- EXPLORE. ...
- EXPLAIN. ...
- ELABORATE. ...
- EVALUATE.
Effective teaching strategies include preplanning, outlining learning goals and criteria for success, and consistently providing feedback.
What do teachers need to do to improve their teaching methods and strategies? ›- Start small, think big. ...
- Utilize the latest technologies. ...
- Prioritize student relationships. ...
- Empower parents to be your ally. ...
- Ensure your curriculum knowledge.
- Visualization. ...
- Cooperative Learning. ...
- Differentiated Instruction. ...
- Using Technology to your Advantage. ...
- Student Centred Inquiry. ...
- Professional Development.
Expectations should be created to meet the needs of each classroom. They should also be individualized to each specific class, but generalized to all students in the room. Additionally, classroom expectations should be stated positively. This gives the teacher a set of observable behaviors to reinforce.
What are 3 expectations for a teacher? ›- Set challenging goals for learning.
- Make expectations clear both orally and in writing.
- Set consequences for non-completion of work.
- Encourage students to write and speak well.
- Discuss class progress.
- Communicate importance of high academic standards.
It is important to teach students specific behaviors that represent these broader important expectations. Examples include “Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Kind, Be Safe, and Excel.” Think of behavior expectations as guidelines for success.
What are classroom expectations? ›Classroom expectations are clearly defined explanations of behavioral and classroom performance that help create a consistent and safe learning environment.
How can a teacher have high expectations for students? ›In high-expectation classrooms, the emotional climate is caring and nonthreatening. There's an emphasis on knowing each child well and developing a positive relationship with them. High-expectation teachers are emotionally responsive and use respectful, caring language with all their students.
What are 7 ES teaching strategies? ›
The 7E Instructional Strategy
These phases, Elicit, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate and Extend, according to Gok et al. (2014), allows students to correct their misconceptions through exploration, and facilitate clarification by the teacher, and aided by explanations by the students themselves.
In this post, I will explore four key instructional strategies: Direct Instruction, Interactive Instruction, Experiential Learning, and Independent Study.
What are three strategies you could use in your classroom to effectively support a student with autism in a general education classroom? ›- Avoid sensory overload. Many unexpected things can be distracting to students with autism. ...
- Use visuals. ...
- Be predictable. ...
- Keep language concrete. ...
- Directly teach social skills. ...
- Treat students as individuals.
- Think-pair-repair. ...
- Improv games. ...
- Brainwriting. ...
- Jigsaw. ...
- Concept mapping. ...
- The one-minute paper. ...
- Real-time reactions. ...
- Chain notes.
- Dramatic Play. ...
- Writing Table. ...
- Reading Area. ...
- Science and Nature Table. ...
- Art & Collage Area. ...
- Maths Area. ...
- Tinkering. ...
- Sensory Play Area.
What good teaching shows: • Good subject knowledge is an essential prerequisite for good teaching. Well-structured lessons share a number of key characteristics. The skilful use of well-chosen questions to engage and challenge learners and to consolidate understanding is an important feature of good teaching.
What are the 3 C's in classroom management? ›As you consider some of your most challenging students or classes, think about your approach to classroom management through the lens of these three areas: connection, consistency, and compassion.
What are the Big 8 classroom management strategies? ›Big 8 / Proactive Behavior Strategies (Tough Kids)
In the morning you will learn about the Big 8 classroom management strategies from the book Class Acts. These are: Expectations, Cueing, Tasking, Attention Prompts, Signals, Voice, Time Limits, and Proximity.
- POSITIVE. Keep your students engaged with a positive attitude. ...
- PREPARED. You should know the course material. ...
- ORGANIZED. Have a plan for what you want to teach. ...
- CLEAR. ...
- ACTIVE. ...
- PATIENT. ...
- FAIR. ...
- TECHNOLOGY TIP.
Set reasonable expectations
Effective teachers communicate their standards to students and apply them to their own practices. They may adjust standards to better address different learning styles and ensure every student can achieve their goals.
How do teachers improve their teaching and learning in the classroom? ›
Make your expectations clear. Make eye contact and address students by name. Supplement lectures with hands-on activities. Recognize students' accomplishments and respond appropriately to their concerns.
What are the six most effective learning strategies? ›These six strategies for effective learning are based on evidence-based research and the science of learning. We will explore: spaced practice, retrieval practice, elaboration, concrete examples, dual coding and interleaving.
What is the most powerful strategy for learning? ›The most effective strategy according to Dunlosky's research is practice testing. It consists of studying and reviewing by answering questions and actively bringing information back to mind. When this is done, information is reconsolidated, new connections are created, and memory and understanding are strengthened.
What is an example of classroom expectation? ›CLASS EXPECTATIONS
Show respect for the teacher, yourself and others at all times. Respect others' property. Avoid touching or writing on anything that does not belong to you (including desks, textbooks, teacher's belongings, walls, chalkboard, etc.). Don't expect that others will clean-up your messes.
Understanding Basic Expectations
Be prepared for class. Be considerate and respectful. Show respect for school property and other students. Hand in assignments on time.
- Walk at all times.
- Keep hands/feet to yourself.
- Be kind to others.
- Use manners.
- Be a good listener.
- Allow others to learn.
- Respect others/property.
- Complete assigned.
Try to keep your list of expectations as short as possible – ideally no more than five. Limit them to the key behaviours that are required in order for your classroom to function effectively. You could display the expectations visually, on posters inside the classroom, as a constant reminder.
Why is it important to set classroom expectations? ›Expectations provide the basis for maintaining a safe and effective learning environment. In addition, research has demonstrated that establishing, teaching, and enforcing expectations can reduce instances of problem behavior.
What are some teacher expectations? ›- Students Will Always Behave. ...
- There Will Be Ample Instructional Time. ...
- Nothing Will Interrupt Our Instruction. ...
- Everyone Will Love Our Lessons. ...
- Everything Will Work Like It's Supposed To.
Classroom rules and procedures that are clearly defined and posted help students understand what is appropriate and what is not, as well as the consequences for rule violations. Clear classroom rules create a framework that provides choices to students and helps teach them to self-manage their classroom behaviors.
What is an example of expectation? ›
The company has expectations of making a profit next year. I saved the files in the expectation that they would be useful in the future. There is widespread expectation that the strike will be settled soon. The crowd waited in expectation of her arrival.
What does a classroom with high expectations look like? ›In high-expectation classrooms, the emotional climate is caring and nonthreatening. There's an emphasis on knowing each child well and developing a positive relationship with them. High-expectation teachers are emotionally responsive and use respectful, caring language with all their students.
What are the 4 classroom rules? ›- Rule 1. We are safe.
- Rule 2. We are respectful.
- Rule 3. We follow directions the first time.
- Rule 4. We work hard and try our best.