Non-Negotiables

How is the school year already over half way over? Well... this makes my heart skip a beat because some of my littles are still struggling with remembering to use capitals, full stops (periods) and spelling of high frequency words.
One way we tackle this issue is to use Non-Negotiables. A few years ago my school was visited by some teachers from the UK and they showed us how to continuously remind children of these basics without having to repeat ourselves over and over. It's as simple as having your year level's Non-Negotiables decided upon at the beginning of the year. Each year's NNs will differ. Introduce these to the kids in September and have them on display.

NNs for a Year 3 class (2nd Grade)

What's great about these is you can refer to them simply as "Don't forget your Non-Negotiables" and this automatically reminds children of a whole list of expectations that the they are familiar with. I also like to introduce this to parents at Meet the Teacher Night. This is double-y helpful because, 1: it gives parents an idea of your most basic expectations, and 2: when you reference Non-Negotiables on homework or report cards, they know what you mean.

Year 3s Non-Negotiables:

- Underline the date with a ruler

-Write the date on each page. The day of the week and month need capitals.

-Write the learning objective at the top of the page.

-Write your name on all of your work. Make sure it begins with a capital.

-Put capital letters at the start of every sentence.

-Put a finger space between each word. 

-Put punctuation at the end of every sentence.

-When "I" is on its own, it is a capital.

Here is an example of how my teacher feedback is quick and easy with the help of NNs.