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School Supplies: How We Use Our Crayons

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When parents drop off school supplies on Meet the Teacher night, crayons are tucked away nicely in student desks.  Or, they are placed in colorful tubs on the tables to share as community supplies. However, do learners know how to use them correctly?

Classroom Management for school supplies

Teaching Procedures

Teachers spend the first few weeks of school teaching nothing but rules and expectations.  Students are taught how to care for their school supplies.  It’s not about putting supplies where they belong, but how to use them correctly in our classroom.  It’s easy for learners to complete projects and activities during the school year when expectations are established early.

Teachers spend a ton of energy planning procedures and expectations in their classroom. It’s frustrating to be told they have an “easy” class.  When the first week or month is used to teach these expectations, they are enforced throughout the year.  A class is easy when they are truly well trained!

Set expectations for school supplies for a successful school year

First Week of School Resources

There are resources available in our Back to School for Little Learners pack that help teach learners these skills and expectations.   However, grab some free resources that are also included in the pack from this blog series.  You will find how to use these tools during the first week of school.  

You can navigate this series to find what you need by using the links and buttons at the bottom of this post!

Do your students know how to use crayons at the beginning of the year? Teach them how!

Crayons in the Classroom

Many students have crayons at home. Some are taught to respect their crayons and care for them while others are never taught how to use them.  So, during the first week we come together on the carpet to ‘meet’ our crayons.  We begin by reading the book The Crayon Box That Talked and discuss that when our crayons are used correctly they can create AMAZING pictures!

Do your students know how to use crayons at the beginning of the year? Teach them how!

Next, we learn the song “I Can Color” from my Back to School for Little Learners pack. After that, we discuss the rules of our crayons.

Set expectations for school supplies for a successful school year

1. We will use our crayons to create our BEST work.

2. We will be gentle with our crayons so they don’t break.

3. We will put our crayons in the correct place when we are done.

Afterwards, we put these rules and expectations into practice with a simple coloring page (of course)!  The learners practice holding their crayons correctly. Being gentle is so important! Next, we work on coloring their best (using the appropriate color and as neatly as possible) and  then putting the crayons in their supply box when their work is done.

Set expectations for school supplies for a successful school year

By setting expectations for children on how to respect our classroom materials and modeling those procedures at the beginning of the school year, we are providing learners with the basic tools they need to succeed.  This allows us focus on instruction and not procedures in the future.

Do your students know how to use crayons at the beginning of the year? Teach them how!

More resources and ideas are available in this blog series on how to use glue and scissors in the classroom.  You can find these ideas by clicking on the images below. Be sure to download your crayon resources at the bottom of this post!

    

I hope that you found this post helpful and if you did, grab the crayon song and coloring page by clicking on the download link at the bottom of this post!

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progress monitoring in the early elementary classroom for math, literacy and reading

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