Yes, we all know we need to do it. But how?
I’d like to start off with stating that I am NOT a behavior management expert in any such way. In fact, I’ve heard from other educators that certain classes require different types of management and I couldn’t agree more. This post is again, solely based on my experiences in the classroom for the past four years.
I’d like to shed some light on why behavior management is important before I begin, as I believe in my core that I should provide an explanation for each post that tells my readers why what I’m sharing is important. It’s important to me to be transparent with you and to make sure that I am bringing value to your classroom.
Building relationships in the classroom, as you’ve read in my last post is important. If you haven’t read that post yet, you can do so by clicking here. Behavior management is equally as important. In my opinion, these two need to coexist in your classroom in order for you to have a successful school year. And who doesn’t want to have a successful school year?
In my classroom, we have multiple forms of behavior management. We have whole group management, table group management and individual management tools. Does that sound like a lot? Good. Because it is. But remember, these tools are necessary for a successful and productive school year. As my co-teacher has taught me (I hope you’re reading this!) it’s important that you remind students that they have a choice when it comes to behavior. They can choose to make good choices or bad choices and there will be rewards and consequences for both.
Whole Group Behavior Management
It’s important for your classroom community for you to have your whole group behavior management system in place. There are many different ways you can do this and strategies that you can use. In my classroom, we use one specific whole group strategy. Depending on what you choose, you basically just want to make sure you have a whole group reward for positive behavior and a whole group consequence for less desired behavior. In my classroom, we use a classroom marble jar. Every time all students are meeting expectations by following classroom rules, we put a few marbles in the jar. We also give marbles for class compliments from another teacher. There’s a line taped around the jar that’s pretty close to the top of the jar. When the marbles reach that line, we have a classroom party of their choice. Some of the options we suggest are: pizza parties, ice-cream parties, hot chocolate and popcorn parties, watch a movie together, etc. But ultimately, the class gets to vote on their reward. We try to make sure we reward frequently, especially in the beginning of the year, so students can see that we are serious about the reward. Most years, we try to have a classroom reward by the end of October. It’s important to note that we hardly ever take marbles from the jar, as we have other consequences for undesired behavior (such as loss of recess, loss of the next upcoming field-trip, etc.)
Table Group Management
In our school, we have our students sitting at tables of 4-6 students. I think the idea behind it is that they have friends/teammates that they can rely on if they need help or have a question. It’s also a nice way to build community in the classroom. We reward positive table behavior by giving out raffle tickets. These raffle tickets are available for purchase on Amazon or at your local party store. The tickets are stored in little plastic containers inside of their center bins. The ticket count restarts every single school day and their goal for every day is to be the team with the most tickets. At the end of the day, we assign one student to count their teams’ tickets. The students who are seated at the team with the most tickets will receive a piece of candy at the end of the day. We also have a sticker chart in our classroom, the team who wins will receive a star on the sticker chart. The first team to get to 10 stars will have a table reward (again, pizza party, ice-cream party, popcorn, movie hot-chocolate party, etc.) At times, when we see less desired behavior, we do take a ticket or two away from the table in hopes of getting them refocused and back on track.
Individual Management
In addition to whole-group management and table management, we also have individual management. At the front of the room we have a Lakeshore Learning Pocket Chart. Each child is assigned a classroom number in my classroom (1-30). They each have a pocket on the chart, according to their classroom number. For example, if Rosie is number 2, she has a pocket labeled number 2 on the pocket chart. This helps for student discretion (although students do end up learning each other’s classroom numbers) and you don’t have to re-write names on the chart year after year. Inside each pocket of the pocket chart, there are cards with different colors (Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Purple and Red). Each day every child starts on green which represents “good day!” When a student is not following directions or following classroom rules, they are asked to flip their card once. This serves as a reminder for students and they have the opportunity to turn it around without losing out on any privileges. If a child continues the undesired behavior, they are asked to flip again, now they’ve flipped to yellow which is 5 minutes off of their recess. Each flip from here results in 5 minutes subtracted from their recess until they get to purple, purple is loss of entire recess. If a child still has to flip after this, they will receive a phone call home and a behavior log. If a child refuses to flip their own card (this has happened before) then they automatically jump from green to yellow. If the behavior is still continued after this and you have to flip their card for them, I skip one color each time. Usually, after the first initial flip of their card, the undesired behavior comes to a crashing halt.
These are examples of behavior management tools that have worked in my classroom. As a reminder, I’m in an upper-elementary classroom (specifically fourth grade) and these have proven to be successful with my population the last four years. In the beginning of the year, it’s important you are very consistent with the behavior management tools that you choose so students can start to learn the rewards and the consequences.
I’ve created a FREE Behavior Management in the Classroom Checklist, grab yours by clicking here.
Xo,
