35 Classroom Procedures to Teach at the Start of Every School Year

The first days of school is a challenging but exciting time. There’s so much to teach at the beginning of the year in terms of classroom expectations, routines and procedures, and not nearly enough time!

You may feel the pressure to dive right into the curriculum, but it’s often best to give fluffy assignments to your elementary students your students can focus on getting to know you, each other, and get a feel for their schedule.

These procedures are aligned best with an elementary classroom, but you’ll need some variation of many of these no matter what grade level you teach. 

You cannot teach all the procedures below in depth on Day 1, because there won’t be nearly enough time. However, in order to make it through your day, you’ll have to at least dabble in all of them. 

Here are 35 examples of classroom procedures to start your year off right. Remember that the best way to avoid behavior problems altogether is with solid routines and procedures. Without these in place, even easy students will begin to display disruptive behavior. So take plenty of time mastering these rules and procedures as a class!

Beginning of the School Year Procedures Checklist for Elementary Schools

Here’s a master checklist of every procedure you’ll need to introduce to your class on Day 1. It’s a free, editable Google Sheet with checkboxes. That way, you can add and delete procedures as needed. I hope it helps with your planning!

Classroom Procedures Examples

Here is some guidance on each of the classroom procedures that you’ll find on my checklist. 

Establishing a Classroom Economy (Optional)

One of the best ways to get your procedures off to a good start is to gamify the whole experience of learning to do school in your classroom. Consider having prizes, points, or some other classroom economy in place on Day 1. If students get to work toward something exciting, they’ll often be more engaged in learning the nuts and bolts of classroom expectations.

I will often tell students our class goal and dangle a carrot before them. For example: if we can all line up, in correct line order, with Chromebooks in hand and a tidy desk in under 90 seconds, we’ll have a 2 minute dance party later in the day!

One extra fun and simple idea – try desk pets!

Note: There are some people who strongly believe you shouldn’t incentivize expected behaviors, but you also won’t have strong relationships in place on Day 1. Consider using external rewards until those relationships are solid and your routines are ironclad. 

Morning Routine

When your kids show up at your classroom door, what are the exact things that need to happen, and in what order? How can you ensure you’re not scrambling to finish your many housekeeping items before the kids need to get busy with work or leaving for another classroom?

Greetings

Think through how you want to greet your students. You’ll likely be expected to do this at your classroom door. I’ve got an entire post about classroom greetings with a free, printable PDF.

Folders and/or Homework

There’s a good chance your kids will be arriving at school with a homework or communication folder. What’s the quickest, most hands-off way to collect these? Does this need to be a classroom job?

Do you need to purchase a folder bucket? At our school, communication folders travel in a lidded bucket with the class as they go through their day with different teachers.

Lunchboxes, Backpacks, Coats, and Cell Phones

Kids arrive to school with so much stuff! Where will they store their lunchboxes, backpacks, coats and cell phones?  Do they put away these things as soon as they arrive, or visit cubbies and lockers by table group? Our students also arrive with a morning snack.

Since students stagger into the classroom, it often makes sense to just have kids independently put their items away as they arrive.

Devices and Cell Phone Procedures

Where do your classroom devices charge? Are students expected to take them home each night or keep them charging on the dock at school?

When they arrive at school, where should their devices go, and how should they store them overnight?

Should a student in your class have a job regarding devices like iPads or Chromebooks? For example, will there be a student in charge of checking to be sure everything is charging correctly before the final bell rings, or someone responsible for wiping down keyboards with a wipe?

What are your expectations for acceptable websites to use for early finishers? Are they allowed to tamper with the background or other settings on their devices?

Closing “Ceremony”

The end of the school day is so important. Not only do you need to tackle a million logistical details, you also need to end your daily routine on a positive note with the kids. This can be hard, because the last 5-15 minutes of the school day can be stressful.

If you can minimize the chaos with solid procedures in place, you’ll have more opportunities to connect meaningfully with individual students who need more attention from you.

End of the Day Classroom Jobs

In my classroom, a lot of our student jobs took place in the first 10 minutes of the day and the last 10 minutes of the day. Do you need to have jobs in place for passing out folders, sharpening pencils, or cleaning whiteboards? What needs to be done in order to be prepared for the next day?

Most of these tasks can be handled by students so that when you arrive the next morning, you can stay focused on your instruction for the day. 

Closing Announcements

You may need a way to make announcements to the class or pass out flyers that are going home to the entire student body. Effective teachers don’t try to make verbal announcements to the whole class late in the day, because kids are too antsy to head out the door.

If you do need to make announcements, what’s the ideal time to do that in your schedule?

Folders/Homework/Paperwork

How will these items be passed out? Will a student pass out paperwork, homework assignments and folders? Will the teacher stuff a folder full of the required paperwork once a week? What’s the most efficient way to handle all the paper that goes home each day?

Backpacks/Lunch Boxes/Coats

Will you send students by table or group to gather their things, or will they collect them as they’re leaving the room? Will students put their coats on in the room before leaving the building to have more free hands?

Safe Departures

How will you know who each student is allowed to leave with each day? What are your campus guidelines for saying goodbye to your students and making sure they go home with a safe family member?

Until you learn their names and faces, do you need to check them off your roster as they leave with a family member?

Clean Up Games

I am a huge fan of clean up games and having a spotless classroom. I never do any cleaning in my classroom except my own desk, because my students have figured out how to make the place sparkle. I don’t even have seating arrangements and desks that are askew!

It’s a silly source of pride, but it sure does help to keep me calm. 

Overview of Tidiness Expectations

You’ll need to introduce your expectations for keeping a tidy classroom to your students.

Because I used flexible seating when in the classroom full time, (I’m now an instructional coach), I introduced tidying expectations for each seating arrangement on Day 1 using a Google Slides presentation. I took photos of how each spot should look before the end of each class and at the conclusion of the school day.

Introduce Clean Up Procedures and Games

At the end of class or the end of the day, I love to play a game called Magic Trash or Magic Mess in my classroom. Here’s a quick post about how it works to motivate kids to make your classroom sparkle. We did it almost every day between August and May, and can you believe they never got tired of it?

Day 1 is the perfect day to teach your kids how to play Magic Mess. We also include anchor charts organization in our clean up games. Whatever materials we made during the day get posted to the walls during the last 10 minutes of the day, and a student takes ownership of this.

Is it messy sometimes? Yes! But do the kids feel proud of their own learning? Absolutely. 

Lining Up

Oh geez, at our school, lining up can be a real pain. I remember when I first started teaching elementary school, I couldn’t believe such an emphasis was placed on “line order” and hallway expectations. It didn’t take me long to figure out why it mattered so much. I was used to just sending kids on their merry way, as a former 7th grade teacher.

You’ve gotta put some thought into your line order, but on day 1, you won’t know any personalities.

Line Order

For day 1, what will be your line order? Will you simply give them a number based on their spot in the alphabet? Will you alternate boys and girls? Be prepared for this to change pretty quickly if challenging behaviors start to pop up in weeks 4-6.

Speed Expectations

How quickly do you think is reasonable for a class to line up? You should have expectations for their behavior as they transition from one class to the next. In my class, I felt like 90 seconds was a reasonable amount of time for students to tidy their work spaces, gather supplies, and find their spot in line. Running wasn’t allowed, obviously. Be prepared to bust out your timer on day 1 and practice a few times as needed throughout the day.

Traveling Materials

You’ll need to work with your teaching team on this one. Discuss before school starts which supplies need to travel with students. Will they need to bring devices from one room to the next? How about pencils, highlighters, white boards and other supplies? Will they bring library books to every class? Should their backpacks travel with them?

You’ll need to collaborate with your teammates to decide what materials will move with the kids.

At our campus, kids travel with library books and Chromebooks, while pencils and other writing utensils are supplied in each classroom throughout the day. Carrying a bunch of stuff gets messy with little hands.

Traveling the Hallways

Many principals do NOT like to see unruly kids in the hallways, or just sloppy line expectations in general. It’s not my nature to be militaristic about things like lines, but I’ve come to learn that kids who are messy in the hallways are also sloppy in the classroom. Sloppiness costs you time, and time is the most precious resource we have as teachers.

Behavior Guidelines

Are students at your school expected to walk on a line through the hallways? Do they need to face forward? Can they whisper with friends if they’re waiting outside a classroom door, or is complete silence required?

Once you’re out of your classroom, it’s probably not YOUR rules that apply; you’ll likely need to follow campus expectations for hallway behavior. Learn the principal’s expectations so you can teach your students to meet them.

Jobs

Many teachers, especially in the younger grades, assign jobs in line. For example, most younger classes will have a line leader who sets the pace and listens for the teacher’s instructions while in the line. They also often have a caboose who is responsible for closing doors and turning out lights. Finally, some teachers will have the second person in line be responsible for holding open heavy doors for the rest of the class as they come in for recess, for example.

Assigning jobs like this not only makes for better hallway behavior, but it can also give younger kids a sense of ownership and self esteem in the classroom.

All Things Lunch

Lunch time needs to run like clockwork, because in most American public schools, the administration team is trying to shepherd hundreds of kids through a single room. It’s not uncommon for grade levels to have only 25 minutes for the entire lunch block, including standing in line.

Your lunch procedures need to run very smoothly, because your class’ efficiency affects other teachers and students in the building.

Placing a Lunch Order

At our elementary school, kids place a lunch order first thing in the morning. They can choose between 4 meal options. When the cafeteria team gets their count for the morning, they know exactly how many meals of each type to prepare. How will you read students their choices, or are they old enough to quickly scan the lunch menu themselves?

Will they enter their lunch order on a smart board independently, like my students did, or will you do a roll call and have students respond to you?

Gathering Lunchboxes

Only a select few students at my title 1 school will bring their lunch each day, and those boxes are stored in their hallway lockers. Will students gather their lunch boxes once they’re already in the hall, or will they get them from cubbies? Either way, choose the option that’s fastest and least disruptive to the flow of traffic.

Interacting with Cafeteria Personnel

Students need to be taught to quickly and loudly state their names as they collect their lunch trays. Older students on campus will have mastered this, but if you’re teaching pre-k or kindergarten at a large school, you’ll want to go through the line with them for the first few days until they get the hang of interacting with cafeteria personnel. This is also a good time to review manners like saying please and thank you to the hard workers.

Cafeteria Seating

Does your campus require assigned seating at lunch time, or is it a free for all? Think about where your students will sit.

Cafeteria Rules

Hopefully your lunch monitors will teach students cafeteria expectations and clean up procedures. This is something you should find out before school starts – whose responsibility is cafeteria behavior? Assuming there are monitors in place to manage behavior, you should still go over the basic cafeteria rules before you enter the first time.

Bathroom Rules

What’s your bathroom policy? This absolutely needs to be clear in your mind before Day 1. If you need some inspiration, check out my post with 8 bathroom pass ideas for a smart, simple classroom.

Some lower elementary teams will choose to do bathroom breaks as an entire class so that it cuts down on individual trips out of the room. Because our campus has strict policies around keeping the door locked at all times, kids have to knock to re-enter, and it can be a real disruption to learning.

Occasionally, upper elementary grades have had to resort to whole class bathroom trips when kids were vandalizing the bathroom stalls.

Appropriate Times

Think about the times of day that it makes sense for kids to use the bathroom. In my classroom, I was willing to let kids leave during independent work time or even take short breaks when working in groups. However, if there was partner work going on or I was teaching, they were not allowed to leave except in emergency circumstances.

Think about what makes sense given your grade level, campus expectations, and personal philosophies about student breaks and freedoms.

Procedure for Leaving Class

Will you have an elaborate system for monitoring how often kids are allowed to leave class? Some people have a sign-in and sign-out sheet on the wall next to the door for documentation purposes (this can be handy if vandalism is a problem). Others require kids to hold up a hand sign while the teacher is working with other students so that the teacher can respond with a simple nod or head shake.

Emergency Situations

Every child deserves not to have an accident in your room. It serves no one for a child to be humiliated, or to throw up in your classroom when it’s not necessary. Make SURE you communicate clearly with both parents and students that you’ll break your policies in the event of an emergency or sickness.

Sometimes, little kids who are literalists will not have developed enough common sense to realize they don’t need to raise their hands and ask permission to leave the room for true emergencies. I always tell my kids that if they are having an emergency, just run out of the room and I’ll send a helper to check on them.

Seating

Whether you’re using flexible seating or traditional rows of desks, your kids will still need to learn the basics of what’s expected at their work spaces. In my flexible seating classroom, much of the first two days of teaching rules and procedures revolved around flexible seating.

Traditional seating will require less teaching, but you may still need to talk with them about appropriate times to leave their desks and move around the room.

​As you’re working on seating, this is a great time to begin establishing your small group expectations and partner work.

We have a dual language campus where students are expected to solve things at their table and take ownership of learning. We strategically partner kids so that every student has access to someone in the top 25% of their class. Students are not allowed to approach the teacher for help until they’ve asked for help from their partner, and when that fails, their table, and when that fails, another table. 98% of the problems are solved by other students in the class.

Not only does this reduce fatigue for the teacher, it also naturally increases the amount of academic language in the classroom and forces cooperation and teamwork.

It’s natural to teach expectations for partner and group work at the same time that you address seating. 

Pencils

Do your kids need permission to visit the pencil sharpener? Is there a place where they can treat themselves to a nice sharp pencil in the middle of an assignment? Are they expected to keep up with their own pencils all week, and sharpen them on Friday afternoons? What about having a student whose only job is to sharpen everyone’s pencils in the last 15 minutes of your school day?

If you somehow stumbled on this page and you’re not a teacher, you probably think this sounds nuts. But for the rest of you: if you know, you know.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Pencils are A THING.

Now, you may not need to teach your pencil procedures on day 1. But you probably will need to make a quick announcement like this, “Hey, y’all aren’t allowed to sharpen pencils while I’m speaking. I’ll explain more later in the week, but for now, please take a seat!”

Entering the Room Throughout the Day

When students enter the room, you don’t want them wandering around, cracking jokes and making messes. How a student enters a room is often how they’ll spend their time and leave it. There needs to be a discernible shift in energy when they walk through the door.

Behavior Expectations

Teach students what it looks like to walk through the door quietly and go to their assigned spots, whether that’s on the floor or at a desk. If they don’t meet those expectations during practice, calmly and respectfully send them back out to the hallway to try again. Students don’t love practicing procedures, so they’ll often get it right the second time, but if not, keep going!

How to Get Started Quickly

You want students getting to work immediately on something they can easily do, but it shouldn’t be busy work, either. What will be your “bell ringer,” “problem of the day,” or “do now?” Having a task like this minimizes chaos at the start of class and gives you a moment to check in with kids one-on-one, pass out papers, or do a quick glance at your lesson plan if needed.

Each day, this task should be something that’s fairly automated. Maybe students grab a slip of paper from a pocket on the door or fire up Google Classroom and find the assignment. Make it quick and easy!

On the first day, you’ll want to show kids where they can find their bell ringer work, but make it a super fun task this week. Before long, you’ll be upping the rigor, but the first week should be about getting to know each other.

Whole Group Learning Expectations

What’s the expectation for when you’re doing direct teaching? If you’re addressing the whole class, what evidence of listening do you need?

In my class, I require my third and fourth graders to point their knees at my body if they’re sitting at desks. I tell them to aim their belly buttons at me. Their hands need to be free, and their Chromebooks need to be in a “jaws” position, which means not closed and powered down, but cracked open where they can’t be distracted by what’s on their screens.

If students are gathered at the rug, I do require them to sit criss-cross applesauce, and kids who have trouble keeping their hands to themselves will often sit on the outskirts. I never talk over students. If they are talking, I do not waste my breath.

It’s interesting because most people assume that someone who uses flexible seating would be loosey-goosey about behavior expectations, but I have always been the opposite.

You will have to decide what works best for you! You may not be as strict as me, and that’s okay.

You’ll have a chance to clearly state all your expectations and practice this on Day 1, because you’re sure to be giving out whole group instructions to the class, even if it’s just instructions on how to play a getting to know you game.

Make sure that when you address the whole group on Day 1, they are meeting your expectations 100%. Because kids are normally very well behaved in week 1, you shouldn’t have any problems moving forward quickly.

Final Thoughts

Be sure to have all these procedures solid before your first day out of the classroom, and then keep a written description in your Sub Tub if at all possible. There’s a good chance the substitute won’t have a chance to read them, but at least it won’t be because you failed to provide the information.

The first day of school should be about getting to know your students and them getting comfortable with you and the first day of any school year is always a shock for everyone. It’s critical that you’re prepared, but know that first days are also meant to be fluid! Have fun!