Back to School Resources - Day 2 Classroom Management

Welcome to my BACK TO SCHOOL resource series! Through August 1st, I'll be sharing some of my hottest and newest resources with you for back to school in six different categories! 

Day 2 - Classroom Management 

Non-verbal Hand Signals - Minimize classroom disruptions with these simple non-verbal hand signals.

Or you may even like these classroom management hand-held signs.

Teach your students what a "good listener" looks like with these classroom visuals.

Teach classroom expectations in ALL school settings with this set of social stories.

Grab this FREE checklist to help you with teaching back to school procedures and routines.

Manage how students go home with this easy to manage resource here.

Manage your classroom jobs with these real photo job cards.

You may also like these editable name job cards.

Add a flip calendar as part of your student jobs and have a student flip it each day.

You can find all of these flip calendars HERE.

Add these visual cue cards to your daily routine and end the repeat of "What do I do next?" or "What are we supposed to be doing?" 

Get your lesson plans organized with my easy to use editable template designed for special education classrooms with multiple levels. The preview has a complete copy of my lesson plans for you to look at as an example. 

And no year is complete without a teacher planner!

And if you like to celebrate National Holidays in your classroom, download this freebie to add to your planner!

Many of my classroom management tools fall into the "parents" category which is on the line up for tomorrow. So come back tomorrow for more classroom management tools that will help you communicate effectively with parents.

Whole Group Management Strategies

I have a very challenging group of wild energetic students this year! I'm talking blurting out, out of seat, whining, pencil drumming, raring back in chairs, yelling, profanity, breaking pencils, and these are only the mild behaviors I'm listing! Sound familiar?

I have numerous behavioral reinforcements going on all over the place in my room at all times. I have students on "Cool Points" charts, some on individual token boards, some marking frequency charts, and some that thrive on verbal praise and a simple high five. 

While these are amazing for small group, 1:1 instruction, independent work systems, and self-monitoring; I've also found that having whole group behavioral management systems in place is important as well, especially if you have a large group. (I have 12).

Here are some whole group management strategies that I use in my classroom to provide additional positive reinforcement.

This is a whole group token board. I use it when I'm teaching whole group (morning meeting) to reinforce positive behaviors. Students earn tokens for raising their hand, staying in their seats, looking at the speaker, keeping chair legs on floor; whatever the behavior is the student is working on. I catch them following the directions; not NOT following the directions. You can read a detailed blog post on how to use the whole group token board to teach rules and procedures here.

I use these as group incentives. My students sit at tables in 3 groups of four. At the end of each day, we determine the best group "together," (we all take a quick vote) and that group gets a hole punch. The first group to get all 10 punches gets a prize. This not only holds them accountable for their behavior at the end of the day, but encourages teamwork and group interaction.

You can get these punch cards from Creative Teaching Press here and you can choose from four varieties. These also work great for individual student token systems as well.

Changing things up to keep it exciting is also important, so before I began the punch cards in January, I was giving each group a ticket and then the group with the most tickets at the end of 10 days received a prize. These also work great for individual student goals too. Creative Teaching Press also has these here. 

One of the best things I ever did for whole group classroom management was creating a GOAL WALL four years ago! I get asked alot, "Are these their IEP goals and is this a breach in confidentiality?" No, these are not their IEP goals. These are basic classroom behavioral goals that we all need to work on that are posted much like classroom rules. Students that are capable help to determine their own goals and often they add goals as needed. In addition to having an active role in their goal planning, students also recite their goals daily following our classroom rules that we also recite daily. 

It's no different than with academics. Our behavioral challenged students also need that daily repetition and reteaching of behavioral instruction.

This goal wall has been very powerful! My students know their goals by heart, they are conscientious about what they need to work on, and even my non-verbal student uses PECS to recite his goals each day. And because we all know what our classmates are working on, we encourage one another to achieve our goals! You can create your own goal wall here.

While my classroom is strongly centered around positive reinforcement, and students should never lose something they've earned, there also has to be some consequences!

So I started this minute chart in late September and it has really decreased a lot of spontaneous behaviors. Students get a tally for breaking a pencil, blurting out, being out of their seat, yelling, whining, using profanity; whatever the inappropriate behavior is that should have a consequence, and then those tallies are turned into minutes they owe at the end of the day when everyone else is on free choice. The last 30 minutes of our day is free choice if students have no missing work (assignments they refused to do during the day) or no tallies. Students that have tallies sit for that many minutes before they can join in on free choice.

Those tallies can be so painful for some of my students...because well who wants to sit while everyone else plays!? Right? But it has worked in decreasing many of these impulsive behaviors in my classroom! Hope some of these tips can work for you too!

Learn even more about "How to Rock Your Behavior Management" here. 

Top "Teacher" Apps

Let's talk "Teacher" apps! I'm not talking about apps you can use with your students, but apps exclusively for teachers! Here are my top teacher apps! 

GOOGLE DRIVE

DROPBOX

Google Drive and Dropbox both offer FREE online storage and will quickly become your best friend. Access your files from any computer anywhere, share files with friends and colleagues, and never worry about losing another flashdrive again! 

GOOGLE PHOTOS

FREE unlimited online photo storage! Take all of the classroom photos you want without taking up space on your phone. You can set it up to automatically upload the photos you take while erasing them from your phone, if you choose that option! Create folders and easily share classroom photos with families with one simple link.

RANDOM NAME SELECTOR PRO

I love this app for randomly selecting student helpers or a student to answer a question. It's very fun and engaging for students too, as they watch the curtains open to see which name will be revealed. It was free when I started using it a couple of years ago, but it appears to be $3.99 now. But I would have totally paid that! So worth it and so easy to use.

COMMON CORE

If your school and curriculum is based off of the Common Core Standards, you'll love this app. Easily retrieve and keep the standards for all grade levels right at your fingertips!

GOOGLE CLASSROOM

I am new to Google Classroom this year and I am loving it so far! Take your classroom website, announcements, newsletters, assignments, emails, Remind 101, etc. and combine them all into one....and that's Google Classroom!

BEHAVIOR TRACKER PRO

I am not currently using this app at this time and went back to paper/pencil, but that's just me. If you like to keep data electronically, this is hands down the best behavior tracking app I have found and used to date. It is $29.99, but well worth it if you want to go electronic!

TOO LOUD KIDS NOISE METER

I just started playing around and using this app the last couple of weeks, and my students and I really like it for tracking the noise level in the classroom. Display on your Smartboard for students to see. You can customize your noise levels and times. While this app is free, you can unlock even more great features and characters for just $4 more.

TIME TIMER

Say What? Time Timers are available on an app??! I LOVE my Time Timers! I use them for my center rotations and for my students that need a time warning, but they are so expensive! I just discovered this app and am so excited! It is $2.99 but the actual Time Timers range from $30 - $40. 

TIMER FOR KIDS-VISUAL COUNTDOWN

When looking at the Time Timer apps, I ran across this one which is FREE and works the same way as the Time Timer; showing how much time is left. 

QUIZLET

I'm loving Quizlet! It's all about flashcards. You can create your own flashcards study sets, or choose from tons of flashcards already available on the app created by others. I've been using it for sight word practice this week. Students can practice reading their words, writing their words, and even take an assessement on their words. I plan to use this app alot this year! And it's FREE!

TRELLO

I've been playing around with Trello quite a bit the last couple of months. This app has a lot of great reviews. It's a great organizational tool for staying organized and on task. You can create checklists, reminders, upload images, assign tasks to others, and more.

CLASS TREE

I haven't had chance to delve into Classroom Tree yet, but it sounds amazing! Turn all of your classroom permission forms, responses, and correspondences into digital documents that parents can e-sign and save on paper. No more keeping track of paper documents! I'm super excited to try this app out!

ADDITIO

 I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard lots of great things about Additio and can't wait to explore it! It looks like you can keep grades, attendance, class notes, and more all in one place and share and collaborate with other teachers. Looks great and has lots of good reviews!

What am I missing? What are your favorite teacher apps!?

My Classroom Behavior Management Plan

I'm dropping by today to share with you what my classroom behavior management system looks like. Of course I also have individual systems in place too, like my cool points charts, self-monitoring sheets, and token systems you've probably read about...but this is an overview of my "whole" classroom system. 

Yes folks, I do use a clip chart and love it! My system is much more than just a clip chart though!! It is not only easy for my students to understand, but is a very powerful visual for my students and let me tell you why. There are other components that make it so powerful!

My student's take home charts completely align with the clip chart. The emotions on my clip chart match the faces on their take home charts. This is another thing that makes it so comprehensive and meaningful for my students. This allows all of my students, even my lowest functioning students to easily understand their take home chart. These hang in student view each day.

Students having a rough day can often be caught sneaking a peek at their chart to see what they got.

Here is a closer view. The clip chart is recorded on their take home charts 3 times a day. This allows students that may start out rough to turn their day around and end on a good or super. Parents are required to sign them and return them each day. Then, they are filed in an individual student binder as data. (Sorry for the end of the year rough copy that's been recopied over & over. The original is crisp)

Students that end their day on good or super, get a small treat on their way out each day from this little drawer that sits at my exit door. Again, this is very successful for your challenging behaviors, because it gives those students the opportunity to turn their day around, rather than figuring, "Oh, I already blew it and got sad so I may as well misbehave the rest of the day now." 

I also change this up from time to time with stickers, no homework coupons, or a stamp on their hand. (On a side note: Make sure to keep your "end of the day treat box" filled with treats that those challenging behavior students LOVE!!)

What else is key and makes this system so powerful is "The Treasure Tree." One of my classroom favorites!

Every Friday, students that have ended every day that week on good or super on the clip chart, get TREASURE TREE! So there's a daily incentive and opportunity to turn your day around, and then this provides a weekly incentive. So how do I keep track of who gets treasure tree on Friday?? Very simply (and my aides do it).

These incentive charts are marked at the end of each day with where they ended up on the clip chart. Here is what the colors mean.

Purple = Super

Green = Good

Yellow = Warning

Red = Sad

So, as you can see, this student ended on warning (yellow sticker) on this particular Friday, so she did not earn treasure tree. She did earn it though for the previous weeks; weeks 1, 2, and 3, and she got the "end of the day" treat on Mon.-Thurs. The two "X's" means she was absent or there was no school.

This system is even more powerful when parents buy in and support it. I say this because the students that have consequences at home for coming home with warnings or sads, are the students that are not only frequently checking their charts, but are also the students that literally will cry when they have to move their clip down. 

Students that don't have consequences at home, still want to follow it, because they want that end of the day treat and that prize they've been eyeing all week on the treasure tree. 

That's why the treasure tree is also another powerful component to this system. It is an incentive in itself. New prizes are added every Monday morning and they can't wait to pick out what they're going to work for each week when they arrive on Monday morning. It also remains there as a visual reminder all day and all week long!

I also love the treasure tree because the time my students used to take rummaging through the treasure box breaking other toys trying to decide what they wanted, and me having to do a countdown to help them make a decision DROVE ME CRAZY! Not with the treasure tree. BTW, it is out of student reach.

I could just go on and on, because I love my system so much and it is so effective! But I won't! I'll leave you with some frequently asked questions though, that you might have too.

Q: What about dealing with more aggressive behaviors in the classroom?
A: The first paragraph of this post has 3 links that offer suggestions with this. Plus, if you search "behavior" on my blog you'll find many posts.

Q:What if a student is absent 3 days? Do they still get treasure tree on Fridays? 
A: No, I require a student to be at school at least 3 days that week to be eligible to earn treasure tree. It's not fair that other kids have to work hard all week to earn it. 

Q:Do you still give the candy/sticker treat at the end of the day on Friday too?
A: No. That is only given on Mon.-Thurs.

Q: How do you find the time to keep up with this? 
A: This is all delegated to one aide. My aide takes 20 seconds to mark "morning" on the take home charts on her way out to lunch. She marks "afternoon" upon their return from lunch and specials. Last 30 minutes of our day is "social time" and this is when she marks "end of day" and takes care of the stickers charts.

Q: How are the clips moved?
A: Students are simply asked to move their clip. They are always happy to move up, but of course not always happy to move down. If a student refuses and staff has to move it, then the clip is moved down two times. So instead of going to warning, they would go all the way to sad.

Q: What if a student is ODD and simply refuses to use clip system and/or gets very angry and has a meltdown when clip is moved.
A: Good question! Occasionally, you will have a student that you simply cannot ask to move a clip down due to their negative response to punitive consequences. For those students my "Cool Points" charts are very effective. 

Q: Is this a new system you started?
A: No, I have been using this exact system in my classroom for 5 years and will continue because it is so effective and meaningful for my students. If it's effective, why change it? 

Q: If I use a clip chart will I be focusing on negative behavior?
A: No, my classroom is centered around and functions on positive reinforcement. I believe in catching my students being good and reinforcing positive behavior, while ignoring the negative. "Praise the best, Ignore the rest" is my motto. But there are times when we simply cannot ignore a negative behavior and a child needs to be held accountable for his actions and learn to understand consequences. 

If you need something new and you'd like to give this a try in your classroom, the take home behavior charts are available in a few versions that I have customized for other teachers and are FREE at this link.
Take Home Charts

You will find the clip chart link at the link above too.

I couldn't find my exact tree I use for my "Treasure Tree" (5 yrs old), but you can find a very similar one here. 

Just remember with anything, it has to be implemented with fidelity and consistency. This clip chart could not stand alone. It would have no meaning whatsoever. It is the components that all tie in with it and the consistent implementation that my staff and I fulfill that make it so effective and powerful. 

If you have more questions, leave them below with your email and I'll get right back to you!

Happy Summer!