What are the classroom rules that that you will establish?

Question

What are the classroom rules that that you will establish?

Answer 1

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that's rule #one.  I respect the students and they respect each other and me.  

Answer 2

I do a class brainstorming for our classroom rules.  The kids really come up with all the rules we need, sometimes as many as 25 or 30 "rules."

I then write them all down, and generally they all fit into one of 4 categories:

1.  Be Kind

2.  Be Respectful

3.  Be Responsible

4.  Always use your lifeskills

Pretty much everything they come up with fits into at least one of the catagories.  Sometimes we need to be more specific, and we have only 1 rule "I treat everyone and everything with respect." and then we break things down to "I keep my hands and feet to myself" etc.  I've done that only once when I had a few kids with special needs in my class that really needed specifics.

Otherwise, everything fits into the 4 rules (no running = be responsible and respectful, hands to yourself = be kind)