The Mrs. Jones' Room website writes words to the tunes of well-known songs, such as "The Mulberry Bush." This activity works well with young students. Create verses that reinforce rules and procedures: "This is the way we raise our hands, raise our hands, raise our hands. This is the way we raise our hands in our kindergarten." Other verses might include, "we write in our journals," or "play with friends." Students learn hand motions to parallel the actions. Another variation on this idea -- especially for older students -- is to create raps or poems.
This idea from Angie Shaw, Nebraska third grade teacher, resulted in a winning spot in Scholastic's "Winning Ideas Monthly Contest." Inspired by the movie "Cars," she used the acronym "R.A.C.E." to emphasize important classroom qualities: Respect, Attitude, Cooperation and Excellence. She taught her students the sign language for each word. They recalled these words and their signs every morning during calendar time. You can adapt this activity to the age group. You could also teach students to pronounce the words in another language, such as Spanish.
Place students into small groups. Each group agrees on five or six positive class rules that will enhance communication, keep students safe and help them learn. They share their ideas with classmates. As a whole group, the class creates a polished list of rules, narrowed down to the five most significant. Write the rules on large sheets of poster board. Ask each student to depict one of the new rules. Display these pictures and corresponding rules in a prominent place in classroom.
Together with your students, design a set of five class rules. Surprisingly, they will typically decide upon the same rules that you would choose. Place students into five groups and assign each group a rule to role-play. Take pictures as they perform their skits for the class. Use a software program, such as Comic Life (see Resources), to create a cartoon strip of each performance. Enlarge and post them in class.
Students will remember the rules if you put a funny or unique spin on them. Instead of telling pupils to raise their hands, the rule might read, "Remember to show your underarms." "Feet are stuck to the floor" has more impact than simply saying, "Keep your feet on the floor." Students will enjoy using humor and creativity to design their own set of unique rules. This works well with intermediate grades.