Establishing Classroom Routines

Establishing routines at the beginning of the school year helps you to avoid problems later on.  Children are never too young to learn appropriate behaviour in any given situation.  Following are some ideas for establishing routines and sticking with them thus allowing the class to run smoothly and enabling children to learn basic and simple classroom language in the target language, English.

I use a lot of songs from the Super Simple Songs collection.  One of the first things I do is teach them to make a circle as a lot of what we will do will require this type of spacial organisation.  I prefer using the audio versions exclusively at first as I want the children to become accustomed to listening to English and picking up on English sounds and key words.  This is essential for being able to give and have them follow, simple instructions like "make a (big/small) circle"; "sit down" or "stand up".

SONGS:

Make A Circle 

Hello Hello

This is a very simple "Hello" song which I usually use with younger children or when I'm just starting to work with a class.  It allows them to learn to say "hello" as well as some basic actions like, "clap your hands" and "stamp your feet".  It also keeps them calm and makes class control easier.  

With my older students, once I know them a bit better and we've established routines and boundaries, I usually introduce them to a livelier hello song.

Hello!  How are you?

This song extends language related to greetings.  Children learn to ask and respond to "How are you?

If you prefer to slow things down a bit, the following song is a good option and it also allows one to introduce older children to simple text in English which is something they would have to start working with in Year 1 (at least in the Spanish school system).  Once students have been doing lots of auditory work (listening and singing songs whilst doing TPR-type actions to learn vocabulary), they watch this video.

Hello. How are you?

Goodbye

Goodbye songs signal the end of the lesson.  The following song has multiple uses:  when introducing the number 1; when teaching parts of the body; when calming children down if they've become a bit restless and to say goodbye.


One Little Finger

Finally, the following is a really good song to teach children to say goodbye and calm them down at the same time so that they're ready to go into their going-home routine (putting on coats, getting bags, making a line, etc.).  It's also a good way of connecting with the "Hello, Hello" song.

Bye bye goodbye

I hope these ideas prove to be useful.

Until next time,
Janine