At the beginning of the year, we sat down together and discussed our classroom and how it would run for the year. We first worked in groups to answer questions such as “Why do we have rules?” and “What is the teachers/students roles in the classroom?”. This led us to discussing what the expectations are of being in 2, 3, 4 and 5 grades.

Our next step was to decided upon the essential agreements for the classroom that we would all follow for the year. We worked independently and wrote down which seven rules we thought were the most important. Then we paired up and had to narrow down our fourteen rules to seven that we would both agree on. Finally we meet up in teams of four and narrowed down our rules again to seven. We brought our rules back and share them with the whole class and matched rules that we similar and turned them into positives ideas we could always follow in the classroom.

After narrowing down all our rules we decide upon three rules that would cover every situation we would find in the class room. They are “Be Respectful”, “Be Safe”, and “Try your Best”. These are the rules we think are the most important to make us independent, active and safe learners at school.