If you have visited the Shop at For The Love of Teachers, you’ll see that I opened up my shop with modeling scripts to support teachers and students as they head back to school. Why? Because modeling is a powerful tool for teaching rules, routines, and expectations at the very start of the school year. And teachers know that if you start off the school year, teaching and modeling, rather than assuming students know how to do things in your classroom, it ensures a year of effective teaching and learning. It really comes down to classroom management and interactive modeling is a classroom management time saver! Investing the time in teaching and modeling to students so they know what is expected in your classroom, and understand how and why you do things the way you do, leads to a productive start to a new school year.
In the past, I thought it was silly to teach 2nd graders how to use supplies, such as how to use pencils or glue sticks. But I’ll tell you that skipping modeling has backfired on me. I thought it was redundant and repetitive to teach such expectations to 7 and 8-year-old children, figuring they must already know how to do these simple things until I had the group of students that showed me how much they needed modeling the care of school supplies correctly. Before teaching this, students were abusing class supplies and materials. Supplies went missing and were damaged. Purchasing more supplies was costly for me and the parents. Something had to change. After teaching and modeling these expectations, my supplies were more plentiful. Students knew the value of caring for our supplies and materials. They learned that there was a place in our classroom for abandoned pencils, and caps went back onto glue sticks and markers to prevent them from drying out, and there was a rhyme and reason to why we cared for our classroom materials in the way that I taught them. And this was powerful. There was an ah-ha moment for these second graders. Teaching students, without assuming they know it from previous years, is really helpful for your students, no matter what age. Because each year is a brand new year, be sure to teach your students how you do things in your classroom and why you do it in that way so they understand.
What should you model? EVERYTHING!
Here are some ideas with links to my Shop to get these modeling scripts to get started on teaching and modeling routines and expectations in your classroom.
Routines & Expectations
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Morning Routine
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Dismissal Routine
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Lining Up & Walking
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Stairwell Expectations
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Positive Time Out (FREE)
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Buddy Teacher
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Logical Consequences
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How to use classroom supplies & materials
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Bathroom procedures
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Recess procedures
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Cafeteria procedures
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Bus safety
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Transitions
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How to clean up work or play centers
Try a modeling script out for FREE!
Follow me to find this freebie and more at:
Modeling Script Positive Time Out at For The Love of Teachers Shop
Or you could get the entire bundle of modeling scripts here. It includes 9 teacher-led scripts.
Academic Skills
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Literacy Skills- Add details, use appropriate punctuation, proofreading, etc.
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Math Skills- record and explain strategies, show work, use clues in a word problem, etc.
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Science & Social Studies skills- record observations and findings, read and research, preview a text using text and graphics features, paraphrasing, etc.
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Study skills: Use test answer strategies, take notes, ask questions, etc.
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Giving feedback to peers & accepting feedback from peers
Social Skills
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Eye contact and greeting others
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Working in a group
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Taking and giving a compliment
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Asking and offering help
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Engaging in conversations
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Cooperation
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Sharing
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Empathy
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Assertiveness
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Self-control
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Responsibility
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Apologizing
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Active Listening
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How to disagree respectfully
After modeling and teaching expectations, routines, and skills, it’s important to give feedback to your students. Positive praise for students demonstrating the expectations is important, along with appropriate teacher language. Teacher language empowers students to make good choices and to problem solve. Get your Teacher Language freebie here.
Must-Have Resource!!!
Interactive Modeling: A Powerful Technique for Teaching Children
I hope you can use these resources in your classroom as you start your year. I know that having my modeling scripts at the start of the school year has been a classroom management time saver! And that’s working smarter, not harder!
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Wishing you a great start to your school year!!
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Christine Weis is a passionate educator, classroom management coach, wife, and mom of two busy boys. She enjoys teaching, writing, and creating resources for teachers.
What a great strategy for the classroom. It is easy to assume that kids have certain skills, and always good to focus on providing appropriate modeling.
Love all these ideas!! It’s so important to model model model!
Yes…it sure is! Thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
Great post Chistine! Modelling is important for building excellent and strong character in children. I’ve picked some tips here to apply in modelling my children at home.
Thank you Eki!!! I’m so glad you picked up a few tips. I do a lot of modeling at home with my children as well, especially, positive time out, logical consequences, expectations, the language I use, etc. Thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
some great tips, I’m surprised you need to cover some of these off but it’s good that you do
Hannah @ The Northern Writes | http://www.thenorthernwrites.co.uk
Thanks! I know it may sound surprising to cover even the simplest of things, but with each new school year, the kids always need modeling and teaching of just about everything. Thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
This is true for homeschooling as well. Year after year I may have the same students, but recouping from summer break always requires a refresher to ease getting back into routines again.
Absolutely! I agree! I model and teach these routines at home with my own children, to name a few, Positive Time Out, Logical Consequences, Morning Routine, and walking and stairwell expectations. I’m glad you could use them too. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
Yes! We often times overlook modeling the “simplest things” and then have to backtrack. I agree, that it is best to take it slow to ensure proper procedures.
Thank you for putting this all together. Sometimes finding the perfect language for a procedure is difficult and you have laid it all out for us! And thanks for the freebie!
Exactly…I always say that it’s best to do it right the first time around, instead of wasting time doing all over again. We assume too often that our kiddos know the expectations. Everything needs to be taught and modeled with patience and care. This is what I love best about the first 6 weeks of school… taking the time to teach routines and build classroom community.
I hope you could use the freebie! Thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
These are great ideas for modeling. I am going to share this with my friends who are teachers. I also think modeling is important in the work I do. I am a business coach and sometimes it is easy to take for granted that people know how to do something.
Thank you and thanks for sharing this with your teacher friends. I can understand how modeling relates to other fields as well, even with adults. We can never assume! Thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
I think that this is super helpful.thanks for posting (:
Thank you and thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
These will be super helpful for the kids. Sometimes we assume that they know how to do some things and they really don’t. I remember in school I was afraid to ask for help because I didn’t want to be ridiculed.
Exactly! And we don’t want kids being afraid to ask anything so teaching and modeling is key!
Thanks for reading!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
Great tips. I think these things can be super helpful in teaching children.
Thank you Christie! I appreciate your comment!
Christine at For The Love of Teachers
I think it’s super important to model things for kids. Never assume they know how to do something! I remember that my 2nd grade teacher didn’t bother to teach us what a noun, verb, adjective, etc was and in 3rd grade, my teacher assumed we all knew. It was really hard to figure it out on my own!
You’d be surprised how many adults assume that kids already know how to do something. But no matter how many times or whatever the age, kids need structured modeling and teaching. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Christine at For The Love of Teachers