Teaching classroom procedures in the first week of school can be overwhelming. There are so many little things to remember! Having a list that I could reference to make sure I covered everything was extremely helpful!
Kindergarten teachers have to teach more procedures than anyone else! You are introducing students to the school campus in general as well as teaching them all of your classroom expectations.
Teachers who transfer down to kindergarten always ask for advice from experienced kindergarten teachers. The thing I hear the most from these wise teachers is – every little thing needs to be explicitly taught! Teachers in other grade levels don’t understand the groundwork that kindergarten teachers do for them LOL!
Teach the Essential Procedures First
When you download my (FREE) procedures list you might look at it and say – Holy Moly! How am I ever going to teach all of this?!?! Just remember, some procedures only take a quick 1-minute statement to let the students know the expectation.
Also, this takes weeks, not hours. So be patient with yourself and the students. Start by prioritizing the things students will need to know on day 1. Here’s a list of my essentials:
- Bathroom and Water procedures – how to ask, where they are located, cleanliness expectations, and waiting turns.
- Recess – How to line up, how to clean up after yourself, and what to do when the bell rings signaling the end of recess.
- Parent Pick Up – Packing up their materials, where we wait for their parents, what to do once a parent shows up.
If we have time, we can practice walking down the hallway in a straight line. Honestly, if we successfully go over all of the 3 procedures I’ve listed above I would call that a successful first day!
When to Teach Procedures
You obviously can’t just sit the kids down on the rug and go over the procedures one by one. They wouldn’t remember anything and they’d die of boredom.
I like to interweave first-week activities and procedures together during the first week. We learn a new procedure and then do a whole class activity and follow-up activity. After that’s done, we learn a new procedure. To get a better idea of how I do this, check out my first week of school series.
Prioritize the procedures that make the most sense for your classroom. In my school, we started the first week off with mini-days, so some procedures had to be pushed off to week 2 or 3, like the following:
- Lunch procedures
- After lunch recess
- Procedures for special classes – P.E., Art, Library, etc.
- Safety drills
I keep this list sitting out on my desk for the first couple of weeks so that I can grab it quickly if I need to.
There are many times that I find an extra minute here or there and I quickly scan over my procedures list to see if there is any information that I can squeeze into a lesson.
Wash, Rinse, and Repeat
Many of these procedures will have to be practiced over and over again. Especially arrival and dismissal routines and your behavior management system. Expectations have to be heavily reinforced during the first 4-6 weeks.
Get yourself into the mindset that the entire 1st month (at least) will be monitoring students’ transition time and reinforcing procedures.
It is SO MUCH WORK at the beginning. I forget every year how much time and patience it takes! Although this time can be tedious, it is so worth it! When you start to see students following procedures with ZERO guidance it is the BEST feeling!!!
They gain more independence every day and by Springtime you have this well-oiled machine of a classroom! Then, of course, they all graduate and you have to start it again next year, but let’s not dwell on that now!
I’m a big fan of fostering independence in the kindergarten classroom throughout the year! Check out my post on fostering independence during morning routines!
Finally, if you would like a free copy of my back-to-school procedures list, you can find it in the link below!
Back to School Procedures Checklist
This classroom procedures list has worked well for me during the first week of every new school year. I hope it is something that you will find useful as well as you gear up for back to school!
Looking for some more back-to-school resources to help get your class off to a smooth start? Check out the products below:
- August and September Early Finisher Task Cards for Kindergarten
- Letter Recognition Worksheets
- Back to School Kindergarten Worksheets
- Classroom posters and Labels – Organizational Systems and Decor Bundle
