Bathroom Trip Tallies

See? You guys are really good at playing the Domino Effect Game too! But, it is SO much more fun to play with you!

What is your bathroom policy?

You guys are gooood!! We adore all your comments. Thank you! 🙂

This is a tricky question…especially when we are supplying them with H2O. We realize with every Pro comes a Con…or 23…

We find the excessive bathroom trips more of an issue at the beginning of the school year, and like many other things in teaching, it completely varies from class to class and year to year.

One thing, however, does stay pretty constant ~ There are always a few “Frequent Fliers” who tend to hit the Powder Room a lil’ too often, smack dab in the middle of class. Usually immediately following recess. Sometimes one trip immediately following the first…Like they didn’t quite finish up?!? Not sure what that one is all about…Not sure if we really want to know…

Here’s What We’ve Tried to Curb Track Our Class Bathroom Trips:

First and foremost, we always encourage them to try their best to wait until recess. We tell the story of how the teacher has to wait, hoping they might sympathize. They don’t.

When we gift the class water bottles on the first day of school {they are sitting up on their desks when they come in}, we immediately establish our class bathroom procedure, then we spend eternity the first several weeks enforcing it.

We decided to hold them a bit accountable while teaching responsibility with their bathroom use in case the endless water supply became a “problem” for anyone.

We stick this monthly tally chart on a clipboard by our door. Each time a student heads to the restroom, they write a tally in the box with their assigned number. We use the numbers to maintain some sense of privacy…We wouldn’t put it past our Tally Mark Masters to loudly announce kindly share their observations ~ “Wow! Jimmy went to the bathroom 45 times this month!”…

Note~ Of course, this chart does not apply to any child who has a medical
condition or needs to use the restroom regularly. We have a few who
bypass the tally chart altogether for those reasons. This tally chart was not
created for them.

For the most part, most of our friends have learned to wait until recess. This tally chart was not created for them.

No, this list is more for those kids who need to go multiple times in class and God Bless their honesty when you ask, “Didn’t you go at recess?” and they look you straight in the face with a definitive, “N.O.P.E., I was busy playing!” Alrighty then…This tally chart was created for them.

We are really careful about denying anyone for fear of the dreaded accident.Leading to new clothing.Leading to a parent phone call. You get the picture…But, we also feel learning to use the restroom responsibly is an important lesson early on.

We consult our tally chart often and if anyone is creeping up in the numbers, we conference with them, discussing the potential loss of water bottle privileges in class. They get the picture.

If needed, we use these tally charts at parent conference time just to confirm whether or not there is a serious condition that we should be made aware of. They get the picture.

So there you have it… Nothing fancy or smancy…But, we are meeting standards by tallying our toilet habits!

So we’re curious. What is your bathroom policy?