Working on social skills such as manners is a great way to readjust some behaviors in your classroom that you might be struggling with. Taking the time out for teaching manners will give you the shift you might need and here are 5 tips and resources for teaching manners!
Manners in School Book
Having this book on hand is a great tool to use when needed. It is an easy read with simple statements such as “Johana is listening to her friends when they are speaking. Johana is using good manners.”
With a whole line of using manners around the school, it makes it easy for quick references. It is easy to keep conversations going with your students.
Role Play Scenarios to Showcase Manners
Getting students involved in situations can give them a much better idea of what their reactions should be and what is considered polite. This is what really starts to build respect with one another and you. PLUS it will make working together much smoother in the future.
Get your students on their feet and dive deep into conversations and pretending to be in different scenarios with this!
10 Minutes a Day.
When first starting with these skills, you should spend at least 10 minutes a day to review or role-play situations. The reviews can be where and how we should use manners.
Soon your students will catch on and you can just make your reviews once a week or less depending on how well your students are doing. You don’t need to be spending all your time on this because we all know time is precious!
Give Your Students Goals
As a class, you can come up with goals when it comes to manners. For example, a goal can be to fill a jar with beans (or pompoms, cotton balls, etc.). To fill it, students are caught using excellent manners. This can be a great opportunity for students to get involved with adding beans when they see positive behaviors as well.
A different example is this set that has the behaviors written out. The goal is that a color of the rainbow is added every time the specific behavior is shown. In the end, the class gets the reward to celebrate one another and their continued hard work.
Have Great Visuals
Another way to make deeper connections is having great visuals throughout your classroom.
Anchor Charts are always a good way to start with visuals. Sit and talk with your students and build an anchor chart together.
A behavior sort is also a way to make more connections and give visual representation on what is expected. Grab this one for free down at the bottom of this post!
I hope you found these tips for teaching manners useful and something you can start today! Cheers to happy teaching friend!
