10 Proven Classroom Management Strategies that Will Make Teaching 1st Grade Easier

Experienced teachers will affirm that effective classroom management is crucial for a successful start to the school year at any grade level. However, in 1st grade, it establishes the groundwork for a fruitful year, though it can seem daunting, particularly for new educators. Whether you're organizing your first classroom or seeking to update your routines, implementing strong and proven classroom management strategies is key. 

Today, I’m excited to share my practical, tried-and-true classroom management tips that consistently succeed in my 1st grade classroom. These strategies foster community, promote positive behavior, and establish a calm, focused setting where all my young students flourish. My goal is to eliminate the uncertainty of 1st grade classroom management, ensuring you are prepared for success from the very first day and throughout the entire school year!

Building Classroom Management before School Starts- and Beyond 

I once read online that teachers make a minimum of 1,500 decisions daily. That's an enormous number of decisions, but it makes sense—handling students, adapting lessons on the fly, addressing the needs of over 20 young individuals, and much more. It's no surprise that teachers feel exhausted and face burnout. Our minds are constantly active, if not in overdrive, from the very first day!

One of the key reasons I believe it's crucial to plan your classroom management

strategies before the school year begins, especially in 1st grade, is this. As first-grade teachers, having a management success plan in place before the year starts enables us to make decisions that align with our desired classroom management style and strategies. Being prepared also helps us support our students more effectively, respond in ways that align with our vision in the moment, and maintain consistency—all of which are vital for a smoothly running classroom.

Strong classroom management is the foundation that a successful classroom is built on- it supports our students, it supports instruction, and it supports teachers.

Teaching 1st Grade with Ease

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Why Classroom Management Matters

During my college years, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend a seminar focused on classroom management. This event was organized by the local teacher’s union in the school district where my college was situated. The seminar spanned three consecutive Saturdays and featured experienced local teachers who shared key classroom management strategies and routine-building techniques—essentially a comprehensive guide to effectively managing a classroom. Unfortunately, only around 25 students from our teacher preparation program were able to participate in the seminar.

I recall departing with a strong enthusiasm for classroom management—within those brief 3 days, I realized that it would be the cornerstone of how my classroom would function. However, since I was still in teacher preparation, I didn't have a real classroom to implement and experiment with the classroom management strategies, techniques, and tricks I had just acquired.  

The lessons I learned during those three days have remained with me, and even after more than ten years of teaching, I still place great importance on classroom management when considering the overall operations of my classroom. If someone were to ask me what the most crucial task is at the start of the school year, I would say it's the effort put into developing my classroom management plan to ensure my classroom functions smoothly throughout the year.

However, with a vast curriculum to address, standards to achieve, and numerous tests, it's common for teachers to mention that they lack the time they wish they had for classroom management. I am frequently asked why classroom management is SO important to me.

Here's why: our classrooms function as small, micro-communities. We gather more than 20 young people and an adult in a shared environment for 7 hours every day. During this period, we encourage these young individuals to tackle difficult tasks, engage in simple activities, try new experiences, support each other, learn from one another, collaborate, and work independently while sharing the same space. For these activities to be successful in our micro-community, each member must understand expectations, appropriate behavior, conflict resolution, and how to meet their own needs while respecting others', among other things. When everyone acknowledges their membership in the community, their role within it, and their responsibility for it, our community can thrive, and students can learn effectively.

Classroom management serves as the framework or guide for student behavior and expectations, enabling everyone to thrive, learn, and succeed.

Effective classroom management cannot be improvised; it demands deliberate planning, ongoing monitoring, and adjustments as needed. Students do not inherently understand it; it requires clear instruction, feedback, reinforcement, and sometimes reteaching if issues arise.

I firmly believe that effective classroom management is crucial for a successful school year. I would like to share my top 10 proven strategies that I believe will be most beneficial as you prepare for your classroom this fall.

Management vs. Routines- Which Do You Need?

Before we explore classroom management strategies, let's clarify what classroom management is not.

When I assist new teachers, they often describe their classroom management as, “I taught kids how they enter the classroom” or “the kids know how they turn in their work when it is finished.” While these are valuable things for students to learn, they are simply routines, which are a part of classroom management. However, having routines alone does not create the solid foundation that effective classroom management provides. 

I believe that well-taught routines ARE a crucial element of classroom management (see tip #5 below), but they are just a small piece of the overall classroom management puzzle. Classroom routines establish consistent and predictable procedures for various classroom activities. While I consider them important (and I outline my essential classroom routines here), I do not view them as the ONLY strategy in my classroom management approach.

When I reflect on my classroom management plan, I understand that effective classroom management includes strategies to maintain our learning environment, address student behavior, and cultivate the atmosphere for learning in our shared space. Although routines support some aspects of this, having strong routines is not equivalent to having strong classroom management. 

My 10 Reliable Classroom Management Techniques

With more than ten years of teaching experience, I am eager to share my top 10 crucial classroom management techniques that I believe foster a classroom community and prepare my students for success throughout the school year!

Foster Positive Connections with Students and Families

As 1st grade teachers, our role revolves around people, which means we must focus on building relationships. Teaching, fundamentally, is a profession of the heart, requiring us to accompany our students and their families throughout the school year. The most effective way to support students and make them feel secure and cherished in the classroom is by establishing these connections.

Taking time to cultivate relationships with our students and their families helps students feel recognized, safe, and valued. This enables them to be their genuine selves, and when support is needed or difficult conversations arise, these can occur from a place of compassion, kindness, and love.

When my son was in 1st grade, his teacher adhered to the "don’t crack a smile until December" approach. Every day, our son would return home feeling sad and upset—he didn’t enjoy school or his teacher. He was unable to take risks, and his learning that year stagnated. I often wonder how different his experience could have been if his teacher had focused on building relationships with students instead of relying on "scary" discipline methods.

Building relationships involves getting to know your students as individuals, not just as learners. While understanding their academic capabilities is important, it also means knowing who is in their family, their weekend activities, favorite games, and other unique traits.

It also involves sharing a bit about ourselves—our favorite color, hobbies, family, and preferred animals. I strongly believe that establishing relationships with students is one of the most impactful actions we can take in the first six weeks of teaching to create a well-managed classroom.

Establish a Classroom Community

Building a classroom community is a crucial strategy for creating a well-managed classroom. While it's essential for us to maintain strong, positive relationships with our students, it's equally important for students to foster respectful, positive connections with one another and recognize each individual as a vital part of their classroom community—though this can be quite a challenge.

I am NOT suggesting that every student needs to be best friends with everyone else, but I am emphasizing that each student should regard their peers as integral members of the classroom community, deserving of respect, having their needs met, and possessing unique strengths and challenges that contribute to the community's success.  

At the start of the year, I dedicate a significant amount of time discussing with my students how we are a classroom family. They are not required to be best friends with everyone, but they are expected to be respectful. There will be times when they might irritate each other, but we must still employ appropriate problem-solving strategies. There will also be instances where someone may need something different, and in a community, we want each person to thrive, so what seems fair to each learner may not appear equal to each learner.

All of this groundwork is based on the understanding that our first graders are part of many different communities and will continue to be part of various communities—they need these skills for 1st grade and beyond. 

My favorite book to read aloud to help students grasp our classroom community concept is “Our Class is a Family” by Shannon Olsen. We often read this book during our morning meeting and then spend a week engaging in various activities to foster community within our classroom.

Teach Behavior, Reteach Behavior, and Reteach Behavior Again…

I firmly believe that behavior, like any other skill, must be taught to students. Even if they have attended kindergarten or are not new to school, expected behaviors need to be explicitly taught and demonstrated to them.

I often hear fellow 1st grade teachers say, “Students should know this; they went to kindergarten.” However, whether or not they attended kindergarten, unless you were their kindergarten teacher, your expectations might differ from those of their previous teacher. Taking the time to teach, model, and practice your expectations helps students understand exactly what you are looking for.

For some students, a single lesson on behavior isn't sufficient—they may require additional reteaching and practice, just as we would provide for students struggling with a new academic skill. When students have difficulty meeting expectations, reteaching and modeling the expected behavior can be crucial steps in helping them master it.

*Please note that I am not referring to extreme behaviors involving harm to others; such behaviors should be addressed according to your school's procedures. The safety of all students is always the top priority.

Utilize Positive Reinforcement.

At the start of the school year, when introducing a new skill, routine, or expectation, I rely significantly on positive reinforcement. This often involves providing verbal cues and feedback, such as saying, “I love how [student] is walking with their hands by their side and a bubble in their mouth.” I make it a point to identify the specific positive actions I observe and mention the student demonstrating the correct behavior.

The purpose is to reinforce the behaviors I expect and desire. It’s akin to, though more advanced than, clicker training a dog. When training a dog, you reward them with a treat after they perform an expected action, helping them learn that the behavior is positive.

While I don’t equate students with pets, nor do I believe they are trained like dogs, the method is comparable. By acknowledging a student’s expected behavior and specifically naming it, I reinforce the desired behavior for all students. Over time, I gradually reduce the reinforcement as it becomes ingrained in our classroom routine. At the beginning of the school year, however, I want students to clearly understand my expectations, so I use this reinforcement to “clue them into” the behaviors and actions I anticipate.

Maximize Routines

As previously mentioned, effective classroom routines are essential for classroom management. Predictable routines help students understand how to manage recurring situations in the daily operations of a classroom.

Before the school year begins, I like to identify all the areas throughout the school day where routines will occur regularly, shifting the responsibility from myself to the students. Once I've determined the necessary routines, I plan to clearly teach them, practice them, and then provide feedback to the students (and practice again if needed).

I plan for numerous routines, and I even have a separate blog dedicated to classroom routines. Some of the most common include entering the classroom in the morning, any type of transition, how we submit our classwork, gathering on the carpet, and lining up.

Go Slow to Go Fast

During my college years, I was required to buy the book, The First Days of School by Harry Wong. A few years later, as internet memes gained popularity, Harry Wong and his book became a recurring theme in teacher memes. Fast forward to the COVID era, where we essentially had to relearn teaching, and the memes featuring Harry Wong and his book resurfaced once more.

Even after many years in my teaching career, I still own my First Days of School book, and Harry Wong frequently appears in the teacher social media world because there is truth in what he passionately wrote about many years ago. We need to plan routines and procedures, teach them explicitly, and establish consistency and continuity—which requires time.

Enter the go slow to go fast approach.

As classroom teachers, we have a vast amount to cover in our classrooms. We often have curriculum maps and more content to teach than time allows, but if we dive into intensive curriculum teaching without first establishing the foundational skills students need to navigate learning in the classroom, we will spend the entire school year managing chaos. Taking time to slowly introduce the curriculum, build community, introduce routines and procedures, and allow students to practice expected behaviors, receive feedback, adjust, and try again will pay off in the long run—I assure you.

Too often, I've seen teachers dive into the curriculum by the second day of school, only to struggle six weeks later because every day is chaotic and behavior management is lacking.

Instead of diving in immediately, find ways to incorporate your expectations into the review units of the curriculum during those first few weeks. Integrate expectations and routine practice into Morning Meetings or your social studies unit—in first grade, one of our initial units is about community, so we do a lot of work within that theme.

Taking the time to slow down and prepare your students for success will lead to a smoothly running school year.

Maintain Consistency

Consistency is crucial for building a strong classroom environment. Students need to know what to expect when they perform certain actions or during specific times of the day, and this is achievable only through consistency. 

Consider if you brought your teacher friend her favorite coffee one morning and she responded with overwhelming gratitude—thanking you, expressing joy, maybe even getting a bit emotional, and sending you a text later to show her appreciation. With such positive feedback, you're likely to surprise her with another coffee in the future. Now, imagine that day arrives, you bring her a surprise coffee, and her reaction is the opposite or, worse, there's no reaction at all—she seems indifferent. You might feel confused. 

This is how our students feel when we are inconsistent with our expectations, routines, and procedures. They lose the comfort, safety, and security of knowing the outcomes of their behavior or actions, which can lead to stress, unpredictability, and a lack of interest in meeting expectations. 

As we establish our classroom community with clear and precise routines and procedures, we must remain consistent. If we practice walking in the hall with zero voice today, we need to continue practicing with zero voice tomorrow; otherwise, the message becomes inconsistent, suggesting that sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t.  

Use Restorative Conversations When Appropriate

Over the past 15 years, Restorative Justice has increasingly been adopted as a disciplinary method in schools. It is certainly a contentious topic, sparking strong opinions and debates among educators and parents. My intention is not to sway you for or against restorative practices, but to share how a small aspect of the Restorative approach has become integral to my classroom management strategy.

In the Restorative Practice framework, there is a step involving a restorative conversation. This approach provides a setting for students in conflict to engage in a dialogue, facilitated by an adult and guided by specific questions, allowing them to find a resolution and move forward. The aim is to transcend the superficial “I’m sorry”, “it’s okay” exchanges, fostering deeper restoration through empathy and perspective taking.

I personally prefer to use restorative conversations when suitable to assist students in resolving conflicts. Returning to the concept of our classroom as a family, there will be times when we annoy or hurt each other's feelings, but discussing matters through restorative conversations enables each student to practice empathy and perspective taking. It also aids me as a teacher in better understanding the underlying causes of behavior.

If you seek more information on Restorative conversations, the Center for Whole Child Education offers excellent resources.

Reflect and Improve Together

I wish I could say that implementing all these strategies along with strong routines and procedures would make your classroom function perfectly and smoothly every day... But the truth is, it won't.

Your classroom consists of over 20 young individuals, and on any given day, not all of them will be at their best—sometimes a few students will be thrown off, and other times, the entire class might be unsettled (yes, I'm looking at you, Halloween party day). When things don't go as planned or aren't working as they should, I convene a class meeting or plan to discuss it during the next morning meeting.

As a group, I lead our class through an open and reflective discussion—identifying what's not working and why. I then listen to their sincere feedback so we can solve problems together. Sometimes, we just need to revisit a routine, procedure, or expectation. Other times, we need to address deeper issues because something isn't functioning properly. This might involve creating a new routine, procedure, or expectation—teaching it, practicing it, and providing feedback.

I strongly believe these reflective discussions not only help our classroom operate more effectively in the present but also equip students with the skills to be reflective, adaptable, and supportive of a growth mindset. Often, the issues aren't something I would have considered, and the solutions my first graders propose are incredible! They truly emerge from a collaborative environment.

Start Each Day Anew

Finally, I hold the view that every day is a fresh start—even if the previous day was lengthy, challenging, or didn’t go as expected, tomorrow offers a new beginning. It’s crucial for our classroom, our students, and ourselves to extend grace and welcome each child back with a fresh perspective the following day. Although this can be challenging because we are human, when we have faith in each child every day and don’t let their past mistakes dictate today’s outcomes, we create a safe environment where they can take risks, make mistakes, and still feel cared for and supported.

When Teachers Feel Supported, Students Thrive

I love teaching 1st grade and I love collaborating with other 1st grade teachers! I redesigned this blog to share all things 1st grade, from my classroom to yours.  If you are looking for great 1st grade ideas, I check out some of our other blog posts.

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1st Grade Classroom Management - A Recipe for a Sweet School Year

As you embark on the new school year, I hope you bring some innovative ideas to assist your students as they join and adjust to their new 1st grade classroom community. I adore teaching 1st grade—everything about the curriculum, standards, and learning fills me with joy.

I enjoy watching my students learn, grow, and support each other throughout the year, and much of this is due to the effort I put in during August and September to set them up for a successful school year.

I hope that some of my favorite classroom management strategies help you feel supported as you prepare for a new school year.

When teachers feel supported, students flourish.

Valerie