Creating Rules for the Playground
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Jennifer Wolff, Preschool Teacher, Cook Hill Integrated Preschool: Developing classroom rules has been extremely important to me to incorporate the children to own the classroom, and own, you know, their environment. I think they need to understand how to keep themselves and each other safe. We also do classroom rules for outside.
Jennifer: So we’re going to be practicing going on the slide. What are some—raise a quiet hand, if you know some important things about going on the slide.
Jennifer Wolff: We talked about different rules for each area of the playground.
Jennifer: Ella, what’s another rule?
Child: One person can go at a time.
Jennifer: Great.
Jennifer Wolff: So the kids came up with the fact of only one child can go down the slide at a time. So we all lined up by the slide, and then we practiced that.
Jennifer: Good job.
Jennifer Wolff: When children do come up with the rules, or help to come up with the rules, they definitely own it a lot more.
Jennifer: High five for being safe! High five for being safe!
Jennifer Wolff: Well, those rules don’t just stay in the classroom. They understand that there are ways that they need to keep themselves safe, and keep one another safe. And it contributes to their caring for one another.