I totally missed out yesterday because I was so sick! I couldn't believe I wasn't feeling well so soon into the school year! Oh well, at least I am feeling a little better today. For teacher week day 4 we are suppose to talk about taming the wild aka classroom management!
The first thing I have to say about management is that you have to have structure and teach your students routines. If you take the time to do this now, at the beginning of the year then you won't have nearly as many behavior problems. I posted a couple of days ago a good list of routines to remember to go over with your students and how to explicitly teach them.
One of my favorite routines to teach is "standing in line!" I have my students repeat a cute jingle after me to get themselves ready to leave the classroom.
Click the picture to get your free copy!
For the first time last year I had some type of behavior management system in place in my classroom. In years past I wasn't quite ready to tackle that and keep up with it all. For table groups I used the BRAVO board. Each table got points all week and the table with the most points at the end of the week got to pick out of the treasure box! You can see my BRAVO board in this picture:
As a building last year we decided we were all going to use clip charts...which I LOVED! The kids were accountable for their own behavior and they were able to see how they were doing all day long. At the end of each day the students colored on a calendar in their homework folder where they ended up. At the end of the month they had to have so many "good days" to get an extra recess, movie time, etc. We made the number of days they had to get more and more throughout the year. You can see the clip chart I created in this picture:
Also something else that I have to say has definitely helped with behavior is being ORGANIZED! I always make sure I have everything ready for the kids, therefore they don't have very much down time throughout the day. This limits behavior problems and makes our day run smoother!
