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Step 12Rules!
Last summer we had three rules:
Another variation on rule-making I like is making group contracts with kids, where everyone works out the rules together. The down-side is you won't get something as clean and mantra-like as the first two rules above, but the benefit is that you start a dialogue with the kids about what rules they want in a space that can be really helpful if problems come up.
We also held a morning meeting every day, which was a way for us to tell kids what was happening during the day (we had a morning and afternoon block of activities) and announce things like when we were going swimming or figure out where we going on field trips.
To figure out where'd we go for our weekly Friday field trips, we'd start by taking suggestions from the kids for places to go (with the bounds that we could get there on public transportation and the cost was no more than roughly $10 / kid) and then everyone voted on where we would go that week. We used approval voting: kids could vote for as many options as they wanted to. That method of voting has worked really well (taking the strain off of each child to figure out where their *favorite* place is, and instead asking the simple question of which places sound fun.)
- Don't hurt anybody
- If you make a mess, clean it up
- Don't go to parts of the church you're not allowed to go to.
Another variation on rule-making I like is making group contracts with kids, where everyone works out the rules together. The down-side is you won't get something as clean and mantra-like as the first two rules above, but the benefit is that you start a dialogue with the kids about what rules they want in a space that can be really helpful if problems come up.
We also held a morning meeting every day, which was a way for us to tell kids what was happening during the day (we had a morning and afternoon block of activities) and announce things like when we were going swimming or figure out where we going on field trips.
To figure out where'd we go for our weekly Friday field trips, we'd start by taking suggestions from the kids for places to go (with the bounds that we could get there on public transportation and the cost was no more than roughly $10 / kid) and then everyone voted on where we would go that week. We used approval voting: kids could vote for as many options as they wanted to. That method of voting has worked really well (taking the strain off of each child to figure out where their *favorite* place is, and instead asking the simple question of which places sound fun.)
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