Consistent Routines
Consistent routines are predictable structures and routines that maximize student autonomy while supporting students’ physical and emotional safety.
Learn more about two key elements of healing-centered routines, Social Stories and Visual Expectations, below.
Social Stories
Social stories are simple picture books used to introduce and reinforce classroom routines or explain new experiences or events that may be confusing for students.
Copy these social stories to your Google Drive to customize for your students:
Visual Expectations
Visual expectations are images and pictures that give students tangible, explicit directions on what they should be doing with their bodies, materials, and voices during key transitions and activities.
Hallway Visual Expectations Posters (slides)
Using the Bathroom Expectations Poster (PDF)
Cafeteria Expectations Poster (PDF):
Voice Level Visuals (slides)
Visual Daily Schedule
Your daily schedule establishes the structures that will enable students to meet academic, social-emotional, and physical development outcomes. When designing your daily schedule, consider: Children need a balance of group time and independent work time so that they can develop a variety of skills, like paying attention and listening but also self-direction and persistence on a task. Children need a balance of active time and quiet time. Children also have physical needs for frequent opportunities for movement. Students will do best when movement opportunities are placed strategically throughout the day. Integrating components of Strong Start at strategic points when students become antsy or high-energy will help students remain in, or quickly return to, their executive state.
Post a visual daily schedule to help students (and you!) remember what comes next.
Planning Routines and Procedures
When planning your routines and procedures, consider:
Set a clear vision for students’ movement, voice, and participation during each routine and procedure. Ensure that your expectations are age-appropriate and reasonable.
Structure procedures to be efficient but also maximize students’ autonomy. In many cases this will also reduce your workload. Integrate meaningful jobs to share responsibility for tasks and chores during procedures & routines.
Embed learning or purposeful activity whenever possible, for example, calling students to line up by their initials in pre-K, or practicing call & response multiplication tables while waiting for students to use the restroom in 3rd grade.
