Classroom Expectations and How to Teach Them

The first week of school is filled with get-to-know-you activities, beginning-of-the-year crafts, read alouds, and lots of time focusing on rules and procedures. This is also the time to teach classroom expectations. I spend a lot, like a ton, of time, going over the rules and expected behaviors. This really sets the stage for the rest of the year. If you teach Kindergarten, this could be the very first time your students are in a school setting! For them to fully understand what is expected of them as a member of a classroom, it is important for teachers to address and teach these expectations explicitly.

Introduce Strong vs. Weak Choices

I like to start by teaching my students that they have the power to make their own decisions. Many littles may not yet understand the relationships between actions and consequences. This teaches them that they have the choice to make their decisions. “What Should Danny Do?” is an interactive story by Ganit and Adir Levy. It teaches students that they have the power to choose their own fate.

In this story, the main character, Danny, is faced with many real-life situations where he has to make a choice. Your students will be given “the power to choose” as they determine Danny’s choice and are shown the outcome of each choice in the given situation. I love to start off the year reading this book. It’s relatable to my students and a great example to help them understand that they too have the power to choose.

We spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year going over our classroom expectations and discussing school rules as well as positive and negative behavior choices. This is when we spend some time sorting positive and negative behaviors. In my classroom, I like to call these strong choices and weak choices. This way, students understand that they have the choice to make strong choices (positive behaviors) or weak choices (negative behaviors). I prefer to use this verbiage rather than good choices vs. bad choices or positive choices vs. negative choices.

After reading the story, we will do a whole class behavior sort. Students will determine if the behavior is a strong choice or a weak choice.

I created this Google Slides Lesson to teach the difference between strong and weak choices whether you are in the classroom or teaching remotely. It includes teaching slides as well as interactive activities with movable pieces that students to manipulate. Your students will learn why it’s important to make strong choices and have a ton of opportunities to sort behaviors, digitally! It even includes a digital pocket chart! This would be a perfect lesson to use when you are introducing behavior expectations, classroom expectations, and school rules. Play the video to the left to get a sneak peek of the resource. You can grab this Digital Behavior Lesson in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store by clicking HERE.

Once we complete a sort as a class, I send students to complete one independently. When we were doing remote learning, I made some digital versions of the behavior sorts. Now that we are back in the classroom, I will be using a cut and paste worksheet activity for students to complete. This will end the lesson, but it will not be the end of our discussion around strong and weak choices. I like to regularly review positive behaviors over the first few weeks of school.