We have spent the past month focusing on our classroom community! Using the Responsive Classroom approach to building community, I use morning meeting, guided discoveries, and a number of steps to create our classroom rules. I don’t just tell the students what the rules of our school are, we work together to come up with rules and procedures to help our classroom time run smoothly. It is a long process, but it ensures that the children are invested in the classroom rules. They also are very aware what each rule is, and how it applies to our day to day classroom activities.
(The picture above is A and L working on cutting straws in our cutting tray).
First we read a few books about children that don’t like to follow rules:
These are some of my favorite books for talking about Cleaning, Caring about our school, Rules, and Getting in Trouble.
After we have read a number of books like this, I ask the children to generate a list of rules:
No Throwing ~ D
No Pushing ~M
We don’t throw books ~ W
Don’t throw blocks ~ H
Don’t touch friends ~M
No hitting ~ B
No touching friends ~A
Walk inside the school ~ B
Play kindly ~ A
Play gently with dolls ~M
Clean up toys ~J
Don’t play rough ~B
Don’t throw food ~ H
No throwing the rice ~M
The children generated this list over the course of a few days. We decided that this list was just TOO long and had TOO many things to remember. Ms Melissa and Ms Clare didn’t want to spend all day telling everyone “No!” just like the books. Over a few sessions we narrowed our list down to:
Use Gentle Hands
Take Care of Our School
These rules are clear, concise, easy to remember, and most of all they are what we SHOULD be doing, not what we SHOULDN’T be doing. It is much better to ask friends to “be kind” then “don’t be mean, that’s not nice.”
We also read a series of books that encourage friendship, kindness, and how we should treat each other at school:
While we have been working on community each day, we have also continued to explore the different sections of the classroom through “guided discovery.” Children are beginning to get the flow of the classroom, feel at ease, and understand the materials at hand. They are also learning how to tidy up when we are done!
I have begun to look more closely at children’s interest and play. I hope to see some topics and ideas emerge in the next few weeks to delve into for our first project.