Back 2 School! Behavior Management!

How many days do you have left of summer break? Let me check the calendar...40 days until I'm officially back to school! But I really don't mind I'm completely in love with school and sometimes I kinda wish summer break didn't exist! LOL! But anyway in those 40 days I have lots to do. Including putting my classroom back together. I moved classrooms so everything is completely unorganized :( 

So anyway! I'm linky up with Stephanie from Mrs. D's Corner and Sara from Mrs. V's Busy Bees and I'm so excited to share my take on all these topics.  

This week's topic: BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT!

As far as I'm concerned...if you ain't got it what's the point in teaching?! Am I right or am I right?! If procedures, routines and expectations aren't explicitly taught learning doesn't happen because you the teacher have to spend all your time managing student behavior. Now I'm in no way an expert in the behavior management area I'm a newer teacher headed into my 3rd year of teaching so I'm still learning myself...I hope even if it was my 33rd year of teaching I would continue to learn and change my techniques.

If you think you don't need to teach them "how to do it" your WRONG! I found myself thinking this right before Spring Break when my students were struggling to come in at the beginning of the day. They line up outside in the hallway (no talking) then they come in and make their lunch choice and hang up their backpacks and then go to their seat and start their entry task. Well on this particular day things were OUT-OF-CONTROL! There was yelling and talking and nothing getting down, and so I began thinking "Did I ever teach this procedure? Did I really go over not to talk in line, how to move your magnet for lunch count, how to hang up your backpack and turn your folder into the basket? Did we really practice these morning expectations at the beginning of the year?" Well it seemed we didn't! So my first tip is just because you think your students are old enough or have had enough experience with a specific routine or procedure...TEACH IT anyway, your way and make a list of every PROCEDURE or ROUTINE you have your students do throughout the day and make sure you have a plan to teach it.  OR you could use my list! I tried to think of everything possible that needed to be taught to the kids at the beginning of school. I came up with 54 procedures/routines so far, if you have others I would be happy to add them. 

Click here to go your list!

In teaching all of your procedures and routine, consistency is KEY! Have students practice and I mean PRACTICE until they do it exactly as you envision. If it takes 4,6,8 times or your whole morning, in the end it will pay off! The time you spend with your routines in the fall will make your life so much easier for the rest of the year. Don't forget to reteach all those procedures and routines after long breaks too!

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT! I have used a behavior clip art and I have found it to work pretty well but I also used tickets. I gave out 6 tickets a week, but the students could earn or loose tickets throughout the week. At the end of the week we traded in tickets for prize coupons. I use Mel D's reward coupons, they are AWESOME and don't cost a lot to implement either, the kids L-O-V-E them :) You can read about them here. I have found I get much better behavior giving out coupons rather than taking them away ;)

Well I hope you have enjoyed my tips! Now I want to hear from you! What are your go-to's for behavior management?

Five for Friday...On Saturday!

I'm linking up Doodles Bus Teaching to share my week with you!

and what a week it was!

We've been enjoying our visits with our classroom elf "Jingle" however in all the craziness of the week I forgot to take pictures of all his shenanigans, but I did get this one!

On Wednesday and Thursday we made Christmas ornaments for the parents and they turned out soo cute! I hope they will like them,  my ornaments are still on my parent's tree at their house.

This project required: white acrylic paint, plain Christmas balls ( I found blue glittery ones on clearance at Shopko), and a variety of Sharpies.  I was a little nervous to have them use Sharpies so I gave them a tiny little square to come up with their snowman design. I think the practice was perfect and they ornaments turned out great! Aren't they cute?!

Now for Friday...We began the day with the movie The Polar Express...I did a little lesson planning while we were watching.  All seven classes...yes seven were in the library.

To end the day we had our Christmas party and made gingerbread houses, fortunately we had many parents come to help us, Thank You :)

Then is was over! and now I'm officially on Christmas break, yeah! It was the longest week ever but it's all worth it! I'll miss those kiddos over break for sure. 

Yay for Break! me (in the red) and a fellow 1st grade teacher :)

When we come back we will be reviewing expectations and rules. What do you do when coming back from break? I would love to hear your ideas!