Today we pick up at Step 6. If you need to review the previous steps please click here.

If you or your friends are parents, this idea would work at home too. So feel free to share this blog with anybody you know that has children at home that may benefit from this as well.

How to Teach Classroom Procedures

1. Define what procedures need to be taught
2. Brainstorm the steps of the procedure
3. Break the process down into as many steps as needed by asking yourself questions 
4. Answer the questions by thinking through how you want the procedure to go
5. Explain the importance of the procedure
6. Determine age-appropriate ways to teach the procedure–use the model, practice, review approach
7. Practice until you feel comfortable with students’ understanding of the procedure

Determine age-appropriate ways to teach the procedure–use the model, practice, review approach

The sixth step is to make sure that those things are kid friendly in the way that you explain them. This is actually three steps put together, but you’re going to repeat them until you have achieved the mastery level that you expect for this particular procedure. So the three parts are model, practice and review. When I say model, that means you want to make sure that you show them exactly how you want them to do it either by modeling the procedure yourself or having another child do it. Sometimes we also use video or pictures or anchor charts, whatever the procedure may call for. It will vary, of course, depending upon the procedure that you’re teaching and the age of the child. 

With the drive-thru example, I have a picture of a drive-thru projected on my Smartboard to help bring up that prior knowledge that they have about it.  I would say something like, “You’ve been through a drive-thru, right?”  And the most common one at my school was McDonald’s because there was a McDonald’s very close to our school. Next, I would say, “How many of you like French fries?” and most kids would raise their hands. “And how many of you go to McDonald’s for French fries?” And they’d raised their hands again.  “How many of you have ever gone through the drive-through to get some?”  So I’m building that up and again accessing that prior knowledge of theirs. 

And then we talk about, “Okay, well, when you go through the drive-thru, can you just speed around someone if the line isn’t going as fast as you would like or if there is someone who maybe isn’t pulling up? Like if you’re super hungry, do you just get to go to the front of the line?” And immediately, of course, they’re like, no, no, you have to stay in your spot in the line. And I would respond by saying, “You know, that’s right–you have to pay attention to what cars are in front of you when you come in and no, you can’t just speed past them. If you did, you’d get in an accident or make them angry because you cut in line.”  And so, right then, I’m explaining to them and modeling to them, giving them a specific picture in their mind of how it is they need to think about lining up. Next, I would tie it into our classroom and explain that lining up is just the same.  We have to go from where we are to the line in an orderly way and not just push past or zoom around others.  

I would show them exactly where I would want them to walk, how I would want them to walk and what I would want them to do. And then I would have the students practice. And as they say, perfect practice makes perfect. So we would practice until I felt they had achieved the method of lining up I wanted them to do. It’s also important at this stage to be sure if they aren’t quite doing it the way you expect, that you stop right then and in a calm, respectful manner explain what was wrong and what correction is needed.  This is not to call anyone out or make them feel bad, but rather, to help students understand each specific part of the process.  We want them to understand what the wrong way looks like and what the right way looks like from the start. 

The class would work towards the mastery that I wanted them to have, and if they were even slightly off, I would say, “Nope, this is what I saw (and explain where the procedure was executed incorrectly). So let’s go back and try that again.” 

Practice until you feel comfortable with students’ understanding of the procedure

For step seven, you’ll do the model, practice and review until you get to the point that you feel like the procedure is completed the way you want it to be. Then you will just need to go back and review as needed. This will likely be each time you line up for the next several days, so plan a little extra time to line up so that you can fix any missteps right on the spot and still get to where you are going on time!

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at michelle@yourteachingmentor.com or send me a DM on Instagram @yourteachingmentor. 

Today we pick up at Step 4. If you need to review the previous steps please click here.

If you or your friends are parents, this idea would work at home too. So feel free to share this blog with anybody you know that has children at home that may benefit from this as well.

How to Teach Classroom Procedures

1. Define what procedures need to be taught
2. Brainstorm the steps of the procedure
3. Break the process down into as many steps as needed by asking yourself questions 
4. Answer the questions by thinking through how you want the procedure to go
5. Explain the importance of the procedure
6. Determine age-appropriate ways to teach the procedure–use the model, practice, review approach
7. Practice until you feel comfortable with students’ understanding of the procedure

Answer the questions by thinking through how you want the procedure to go

Step four is answering the questions you just came up with, and thinking through each part of the procedure. Using the lining up example again, I knew that I wanted them to put their materials away, push their chairs in, and I knew exactly how I wanted them to walk in the line. I wanted it to be something that was very smooth, no pushing, no shoving, no racing to the front, walking very calmly and in control on a certain path to line up only after being sure their materials were picked up properly and their chair was pushed in if they were sitting in their seats. 

**Side note– Most of the ideas I share with you are not completely original to me. That’s one of the things that good teachers do – They seek out advice and help from other teachers.
Blogs and social media have really made a huge impact in this area. It’s the whole reason I am writing this post (and probably why you are reading it!) – to share ideas to make teaching easier and more efficient. Teaching how to line up is one of my favorite procedures to teach because of Leslie at the blog Kindergarten Works. She has a great idea for teaching this particular topic that I used and just tweaked and made it my own, like we all do. We get the idea from someone, but then we make the necessary changes to make it work in our own classroom. And it just worked like a charm.

And so once I had defined for myself the exact steps I wanted them to follow, I had to think about how to teach it to the kids. And this is where Leslie’s idea came in. She uses a great analogy of the drive-thru. And the best thing about using the drive-thru example is that almost every kid has experienced this. Even for those beginning kindergartners I was teaching, most of them at some point had gone through a drive-thru somewhere to be able to have some background knowledge for what you’re talking about. 

Explain the importance of the procedure

Then what you need to do for step five, (and this is key for student buy-in)  is to explain the importance of the procedure, aka why do they need to know this? So, if I’m talking about lining up, I need to let them know that it’s important that they do it this way for safety reasons and so that we all can get to where we’re going in the most timely and efficient manner possible.

This same idea holds true at home. If you’re teaching a bedtime routine, you want to tell them that it’s important for them to understand this so that they don’t forget something and then have to get up, which would interrupt their sleep. Getting a good night’s sleep is so important for children to function well the next day.

Be sure to optin to receive an email when the next post arrives: 

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at michelle@yourteachingmentor.com or send me a DM on Instagram @yourteachingmentor. 

Today’s blog post is going to focus on one of the most important things we have to do once the kids arrive for the start of the school year – teaching procedures.  This is crucial at the beginning of the year to set the tone of the classroom, but it is also important to revisit many times throughout the school year. Having a specific method to follow will help you be consistent no matter where or when you teach or review your procedures.

Also, this is a topic that’s not just reserved for teachers. If you or your friends are parents, this idea would work at home too. So feel free to share this blog with anybody you know that has children at home that may benefit from this as well. 

I’ve got a step by step process for you that would work with pretty much anything that you may need to teach. And I’ll give you an example along the way as well. 

How to Teach Classroom Procedures

1. Define what procedures need to be taught
2. Brainstorm the steps of the procedure
3. Break the process down into as many steps as needed by asking yourself questions 
4. Answer the questions by thinking through how you want the procedure to go
5. Explain the importance of the procedure
6. Determine age-appropriate ways to teach the procedure–use the model, practice, review approach
7. Practice until you feel comfortable with students’ understanding of the procedure

Define what procedures need to be taught

The very first thing that you need to do well before the students arrive is to define what procedures need to be taught both for you and for the students. You need to think about what things kids are going to be doing on a routine basis. For example, in the classroom, that might be things like arrival procedures, dismissal procedures, lining up, or turning in work. All of those are things that kids are going to do on a regular basis and something that most teachers have a certain way that they want it done in their classrooms. If you’re at home, you may have a bedtime routine or a homework routine. So any of those ideas would apply for this particular topic. 

Brainstorm the steps of the procedure

Next, brainstorm the specific steps you want children to follow for the procedure you have in mind first. You want to make sure that you know exactly what it is you want the students to be able to do. You also have to think about how you want to explain that to the students. This probably goes without saying, but explaining a procedure to a six year old kindergarten student is very different than explaining even the same procedure to a fifteen year old sophomore in high school.  It sounds crazy, but just because you know what you want them to do, doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the language for teaching them. So you want to think about your age group–your target audience, so to speak–and how you can best explain that procedure to them. 

Break the process down into as many steps as needed by asking yourself questions 

Step three is to break that procedure down into as many steps as you possibly can, not to make it a bunch of steps, but to make sure that you don’t forget anything. For example, let’s talk about lining up.  That’s something that probably every elementary classroom in the world does at some point. And it’s actually one of my favorite procedures to teach. I had to stop and think, what is it that I need them to do? Well, I had to think about how I wanted them to transition from whatever it was we were doing to where it was they were going. I had to think about these things:

• Are they sitting on the carpet? 
• Are they sitting in their chairs? 
• Where will the line be?
• Where are they going? 
• What are they going to need to do before we can even line up? 
• Do they need to take things with them?

Then, I had to think about how I wanted them to line up…

• Does it matter if they’re in one line or two? 
• Is there a line order?
• Does it matter which way they go to get to the line? 
• Does it matter if they walk or can they run?

I mean, I don’t know any classroom in the world that would let kids just run up to the line. But again, those are the kinds of things that you want to think through in this third step. As teachers, we realize that running would not be a plausible idea, but kids need to be specifically told that. Be sure you think of everything that you would want them to know, and then how you’re going to teach it. 

Be sure to optin to receive an email when the next post arrives: 

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at michelle@yourteachingmentor.com or send me a DM on Instagram @yourteachingmentor.