I believe it is essential to include students in making the classroom rules. When the rules are agreed upon by the community, they are more likely to be followed. We discussed what it means to sign a contract and that signing the classroom rules means they agree to follow them. I think they did a nice job of coming up with rules that will help us all have a successful year. I might have had to help with wording a little bit....the students agreed with me that we should change the important rule of "Don't eat your boogers" to "Be Clean." :)
