Teaching Good Habits and Manners in the Classroom

I recently found out that September is the National children’s Good Manners Month in the US and it seemed like a great subject to write about here. When we think about good manners, we think about kindness, courtesy, thoughtfulness, and respect of others or simple things like do not interrupt when someone else is speaking in the classroom.

Here are some fun ideas for teaching manners in the classroom:

1. Sing the Good Manners Song or play games that demonstrate good manners such as “Who’s Pigging Out” – a table manners game.
2. Ask the students to read out loud in the classroom one of the many great manners books for young kids such as “May I Have a Cookie?” Or “Achoo”.
3. Very important also is to teach kids the game playing etiquette and sportsmanship. This would be best demonstrated outside in the park while playing sports that the whole class can enjoy.
4. Role play in the classroom to teach kids how to greet and say goodbye properly to adults, or how to shake someone’s hands during introductions. The kids can have a lot of fun with this activity and afterwards, you can demonstrate how to do it properly if mistakes were made.

Do you have other ideas for teaching manners to young kids? Please share with us!