Back to School Procedures: Potty Procedures!

It's that time again! Time to head BACK to SCHOOL!!! I learned very early on in my teaching career how important it is to go over procedures for EVERYTHING at the beginning of the year! If you explicity go over the procedures and expectations for students to complete simple everyday tasks, you will have a MUCH better year, I promise! Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be sharing some of the procedures that I use in my classroom that have worked well for me!

This one is one of the most important procedues because everyone has to go, especially little kids!

I always, always, always go over the bathroom procedures that I have in my classroom on the very first day of school! We always begin by creating an anchor chart and I list every step so that we can always go back and refer to it, if needed!

To me, the most important step is that students know WHEN they can use the restroom. Unless it's a true emergency, students should not be interrupting me when I'm teaching to ask to use the bathroom. Since I teach using the workshop model, my actual teaching time is not very long so students should be able to wait to ask to go to the bathroom. Whenever I am NOT teaching the entire group, they are free to ask to go to the bathroom. 

My favorite part of these procedures is that my students don't have to actually ask to go to the bathroom. All they do is show me the bathroom pass. I have ONE boys pass and ONE girls pass. So only one boy and one girl can be in the bathroom at a time. 

All they have to do is grab the pass and show it to me. This way even if I am working with a small group, all I have to do is shake my head yes or give a thumbs up! I just love non-verbal communication in a classroom!

This part is a little different in my classroom! After students know that it is okay to go to the bathroom, they put the pass ON their desk. They do not put it around their wrist, or around their neck and take it to the nasty, dirty, gross bathroom to get tons and tons of germs all over it. They simply put it on their desk. That way I know where they are and no other students can get the pass because they know someone is already using the bathroom! 

When they return from the bathroom they simply put the pass back and get back to work! Then, somebody else can get the pass and do the same thing! 

Nothing fancy, but this works really well in my classroom! Any tips for how your handle potty procedures in your classroom!?

Want to grab some passes for yourself? Click on the image below to grab this freebie!

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