Class Rules

I know we all spend a lot of time the first week going over the classroom and school rules...and repeating them over and over again :)   On Monday my class sat down together and had an open discussion about some of the rules the kids thought that our class should have.  You always get the common sense rules, that I love to hear, like "don't pull people's hair" or "no pinching" but those are always important too!  All the rules the students come up with I usually put into a category on the board that will end up being our official class rules.  When we are finished discussing them we put them onto our Classroom Rules poster that hangs on my big book stand by the carpet.  Then the children all make their own Class Rules book.  There are five pages in the book so we usually do one page a day.  For some reason this year my students were beyond excited to take this book home.  They had so much fun creating it!  Here is one of my students completed books:

Their new class friends..and it looks like Dad is joining us too ;)

This page took a little longer because the students insisted on drawing what was actually on the bottom of their shoe!

I always save this page for last, because this rule becomes a hit! I have parents that will say that they even use this rule at home with their siblings.  I make sure to explain to them that adults are still the boss, but other students in the class cannot tell them what to do.  If a student does then their reply can be, "I am the boss of me."

If you would like to try this in your class I am including the rules below :)

My Class Rules Book

Home Away From Home

My room is one of the biggest in our school, but it also has no windows! Which in South Florida is not always the best thing.  Today was our first day of the new school year..and in kindergarten that can be very hectic.  I spent a good 15 minutes explaining the different dismissal procedures, showing them where they would line up in the hallway, and tagging them all in case they forgot their dismissal..or in some cases their own name..when they left my classroom ;)  I thought I was all ready to go and then found out with about 2 minutes of the day left that there was severe weather outside and parents would be picking up their children in the classroom.  That led to more confusion with the little ones and a whole other dismissal explanation. Anyways, come check out our home away from home!

The view from the door:

This is our classroom library.  The children love this little corner! I am waiting to complete our first project to hang on our 'Great Work!' bulletin board.  The cubbies that you can see in this picture are filled with art supplies for our art center.

Here is another picture of our library

Our word wall and our computer station.  This year I have 2 desktops and for the first time I also have 2 laptops! I am very excited to have them in my classroom!

Our free choice center sign. The kids use their clothespin with their name on it from the behavior chart to sign up.  They have to put their name on a dot by the center they want to go to.  When the dots are full, then that center is full.

A view of our writing center.  The bulletin board will soon display students wonderful writing and it will also display some of the different blends/chunks that we learn.  Here the children will do post office writing, get their write the room materials, rainbow writing, write the globe, and much, much more!

Our ABC center.  There are alphabet puzzles, leap frog, sight word activities, white boards, magnetic letters, and more.  I am constantly changing the activities here.

The front board and calendar.  We spend a good portion of the day on the carpet.  We do the calendar in the morning along with the weather and learning a little about money.  We also count by 5's and 10's on our helping hands.  I have an ABC helper who will point to the alphabet and sing one of the Dr. Jean ABC songs. Then we will do our morning message and read a book before centers.  This year I am going to do more class graphing which you can see on the right hand side :)

Another view of the board.  You can see the behavior clip chart, our specials schedules, and the students birthdays.

I hope you enjoyed the quick little tour of the class! Today was such a crazy, busy, first day! I am exhausted and heading to bed!