Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
I often hear from teachers who in long missives describe awful behavior towards them. They describe angry, argumentative, and aggressively disrespectful students. Students who tell them off and try to disrupt and sabotage their class. Students who roll their eyes and refuse to look ... Read more
Read through our favorite classroom management hacks and then hop over and become a Plato Pack member for even more teaching tools, strategies and support.
It can be infuriating when students complain, especially within full earshot of the class. Here's how to handle it so it rarely, if ever, happens again.
When students question your classroom management, it's hard not to become defensive and risk causing resentment between you. Here's how best to handle it . . .
As an educator or parent, getting into a power struggle can be an awful thing. We waste so much of our energy trying to get we we want that we sometimes forget what our goal was in the first place. Power struggles can be especially difficult with kids with ADHD, autism, oppositional-defiant disorder
20 easy classroom management strategies you can start right away to help improve student behavior and build a strong, positive classroom community! I've been wanting to write this post for so long bec
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
So you have this student, or maybe several, who during instructional time try to make their classmates laugh. Sometimes it’s just a look or whispered comment, but it can be a major disruption. It can also be hard to know how to handle. Should ... Read more
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A few weeks ago, I shared my plans for the week of October 17th in my Bats Acrostic Poems Post (click {here} to check it out). Well, I have gotten so many emails asking me to share and editable version with you. Unfortunately, I cannot do that because I cannot share the Scrappin' Doodles graphics in a non-pdf file and my plan book is modified from a model purchased from Ms. M's store, A Teacher's Plan. Fortunately, you can purchase the graphics yourself from Scrappin' Doodles by clicking my link to the left and searching for "school stick kids" and "my favorite teacher." You can also purchase the lesson plan template "Is Everything Here?" from Ms. M. by clicking the picture below. I hope this helps! Please, tell Ms. M. I sent you.
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
How would you respond if a student just shuts down on you when asked to complete an independent assignment? Teachers share their advice.
So, I just realized that I never posted my classroom pictures. Yes, school started in August and it is now almost February...better late than never? This is probably the first year that I am truly happy with the way my room turned out. Last year I was in Montana the week before school so I felt rushed to get things ready, and every year before that I've had to switch rooms, which is always chaos. Here is the finished product. Reading Area with a Dr. Seuss poster that I made. another view of the reading center. Reading Goal Bulletin Board with Chic-fil-A cow. As students get closer to their goal, they put a clothes-pin with their name on it on the ladder. Encouraging students to be "bucket-fillers"--give compliments. Not sure where this idea first came from, but a lot of teachers at my school do it with their classes. The buckets now have students' names on them. Stole this idea from pinterest. Grammar Island sentence. Our mascot is the marlins. After students read a book, they fill out a recommendation card for the board. Writing Center Agenda Board. It's a little different now. Calendar, "student center" (where they turn their papers in), and my desk. My favorite thing in the room. I've had this for a few years now. Pretty sure I first saw something similar to it in a book somewhere. I love it. cubbies with printables found on pinterest. Welcome to 3G! Ask me if my room is still this clean. When I left today, I couldn't even see the wood of my desk. Any of you educators have any teacher organizational tips??
...I was only 7 when that song came out, but either way, you're now reading this title with the tune to that song. #missionaccomplished I frequently get asked on comments or through messages what my daily routine looks like in the classroom. I love seeing daily schedules. When creating the perfect schedule and routine for your classroom, you need to bounce around some ideas and suggestions. And where else better to get those suggestions than from other teachers?! In most grade levels you might not have as much wiggle room when it comes to creating your daily routine as we do down in pre-school. Your reading and math RtI times are set by your administrators and you've got to include 'x' amount of time in this subject and that subject. Some of the decisions are already made for you. But for me, I have full flexibility with my schedule. Even for lunch I can pick whatever time I want since my kids eat in the classroom, not the cafeteria with kindergarten. I also am free to chose when I take my lunch and my paras take their lunch. It's awesome to have such flexibility! But that still doesn't make figuring out your schedule/daily routine any easier. I usually end up with a few rough drafts on paper with various times and arrangements before making a final decision. My final copy is then transferred over to the classroom schedule and individual student schedules. A copy of it is also included in my welcome packet for the parents. The next step is plugging in the students. I always, always, ALWAYS am tweaking our schedule after the kids start. Whether it's changing the order of something or adjusting the times, something is guaranteed to change. Usually by the third week, it's set in stone. Then I send home a revised copy to the parents. They probably toss it, but I like for them to have it just in case they have to pick their child up early one day, or make a doctors appointment-- they know what their child will miss. For the 2013-2014 school year, this was our schedule. I may have tweaked our times by 5-10 minutes here and there, but didn't make new cards to reflect that. As you can see I display it right by our carpet area. We re-group here following most transitions so it's a perfect location. You can also see on the job chart that there is a schedule helper. This person helps to move the clothespin down our schedule throughout the day. This pocket chart is so perfect for our schedule. I actually have 2 of them because I didn't think our full day schedule would fit. I was able to make it work though by combining some things (center time and clean up time) and doing just a dismissal picture for when it's time to get back packs. Because once they get their back pack, we don't come back to carpet, so we'd never move that clip down again. And yes, I FORGOT to put a lunch picture on the lunch/bathroom part of our day. I kid you not, I left it that way all year #teacherfail I did at some point realize the picture was missing, I just never took the time to fix it. Whoops. There is also a piece of velcro on top of the outside picture. This is for when it rains. I velcro a gross motor room picture on there. This is essentially a small gym right across the hall from our classroom. I'm sure if I ended this post here I'd be flooded with questions about what we do in each part of day so I'll go ahead and elaborate on that for you. If you didn't think this post was already long enough, it's about to get LONGER! Go grab yourself some coffee or a latte--maybe even a snack! I'm sure some of this self-explanatory, but everyone does things differently, so let's dive in! **Please note that outside and lunch should be flip flopped! I put the schedule back together just to snap these photos and just now noticed that mistake!** Arrival/Bathroom: Students come in the classroom at 7:50. Upon entering they complete their arrival routine of hanging up their name tag, back pack, taking out their folder, signing in, and then completing the work box at their seat. After they finish their box, they put it away on the shelf. Then they are allowed to play at what we call "table time." These are specific toys and puzzles on 2 tables. This is the only area they can play in at this time. Or they can look at books on the book shelf, which is located in the same area. Students are sent to the bathroom one at a time after they finish their box and are at the table. At this time one adult will go the cafeteria to get our breakfast. Breakfast: The schedule says 8:00, but realistically this wound up being 8:30. By the time everyone uses the bathroom and we get back from the cafeteria, we sit down for breakfast. Each child has an assigned seat at the table and a placemat that they made. Everyone gets germ-x, we sing "open shut them" and then they are told the breakfast choices. Every child must ask before they can have anything --whether it's with words or pictures. Some students are even served bite by bite to make them request more. Communication is the goal! Anything to promote it! As they finish breakfast, they go back the table time toys. Anyone who still needs to use the bathroom will go after breakfast. When everyone is finished, we turn on the clean up song to put away our books and table time toys. Then students transition to the carpet. Greeting Time: This did not start at 8:30 either. More typically it was anywhere from 8:50-9:00 before we sat down. We do 3 things during greeting time and I have these 3 things on a small schedule that I move another clip down on so the students know the 3 tasks we do at that time. (Sorry I don't have a photo of this!) We start with our Hello Song. Each child is holding a name tag. We sing hello to each one and we practice spelling their name before they give me their name card. For some this might include the first letter, then gradually build up to their full name throughout the school year. Next, we do our message board. Messages are on the easel in our greeting area. Most often we have 2 messages, and on Thursday, 4 messages. Our standard 2 are "jobs" and "outside." We review who has what job, and then whether or not we will go to the playground that day. Following messages, we move on to the song book. Each day there is a child's name on the cover of the song book. That child gets to pick the song for us to sing as a group. They LOVE the song book! (That's another blog post in itself!) Earn/Gross Motor: Following greeting time we have earn time. It says gross motor because in the beginning of the year that's where we go for about 10 minutes instead of the students making a choice between 2 earn items. We do it this way just to make the correlation between the yellow star and special activity. After about 2-3 weeks we will start counting our happy sticks and making an earn choice. We'll be here for days if I elaborate on happy sticks. I have another post about it here, although that's also due for an update because a lot of things were adjusted/tweaked with those throughout the course of the year. Once everyone has made their choice we set a 3-5 minute timer. When the timer beeps, earn is over and we go back to our spot on the carpet. Earn choices are typically small sensory items that they can play with in their spot. If we have bubbles they might move around some, or some messy goop they'll transition to the table behind the carpet for that. Centers/Clean Up: Following earn time we are ready for centers. Halfway through the year I added task box schedules for the students before centers. I will probably adjust our schedule for this next year. (This is also another blog post in itself!) The students who have task schedules are given a picture to transition them to do their work. Following their work they can earn centers. Students choose a play center to go to at this time. During centers I may call students to work with me one on one on IEP goals, work on PECS exchanges with students, and all students use the bathroom again. Following a 5 minute warning, the song helper will turn on the clean up song when it's time to put away our toys. Earn/Gross Motor: Again, same as above. We count our sticks and get our earn. Large Group Time: This can be a variety of activities. It almost always starts with a story read aloud that's engaging. Students either have story boards to follow along with or a manipulative to hold on to and/or sequence along with our story. We may also sing a thematic song during this time too. While we are doing this one adult goes to get our lunches from the cafeteria. If we finish our large group plans before lunch arrives, then we turn on the smartboard for activities while we wait. Lunch: Once lunch is set up at the table students will transition there. We follow the same routine as breakfast. After they eat they use the bathroom and then play with table time toys again. Once everyone has finished lunch they should all be at table time. We will clean up table time to transition to outside time. Because an adult gets the lunches for the students, we make our choices using this lunch book. This is excellent for your non-verbal students, but I use this for all of mine. Outside: Weather permitting we go outside to the playground. We try to clean up our table time toys at 11:30am to line up for the playground. If we're running behind, we just extend our time once we get out there. We stay out for about 20-30 minutes. When we transition back inside we get right on our cots for quiet time. Typically a teacher has set up cots while students are eating lunch, or stays behind to set them up while we go outside. Quiet Time: Some of you may be shocked that we're doing quiet time and wondering how in the world we do it. Don't give me any gold stars yet because I have a trick. It's called the Smartboard. We play preferred tv shows via DVDs on the smartboard during quiet time. The students don't sleep anyway and this is so much more calm and manageable than when I tried "quiet time baskets" with quiet activities. We have to have a quiet time to allow all the staff in the room to get their lunches. This is what makes it the most manageable. Quiet time will last for 45 minutes. Before the students get up a staff sets up for snack. Snack: We turn the lights on to signal it's time to get up. Students put their pillows and blankets under their cot sheets and go to the snack table. A teacher puts away the cots. The snack helper passes out placemats and we proceed with snack the same as our other meals. However, now, when they finish snack they may go to any of the play centers. They do not have to play with table time toys. This is great since some students either do not want snack or finish snack early. Centers/Clean-Up: This is the same as above. In the afternoon centers will run for about 1 hour. Again, I can pull students to do one on one activities with me and some students will complete a second task schedule for the day. We follow the same procedure for clean up. Earn/Gross Motor: Again, same as above. We count our sticks and get our earn. Dismissal: After clean up from our final earn for the day it's time to pack up. Students are sent to the cubbies to follow their pack up routines (in visual form for most) and then we sit down in our cubby. Our busses come the pre-k wing door and we can see the busses as they pull up from our classroom. As a bus pulls up I call those students to line up and walk to their bus. We do this 1 bus at a time. On nice days we will go outside and play on a small playground until our bus is here. SHEW we made it to the end of the day! Are you exhausted yet? Teaching full day pre-k is LONG. I have done it for 2 years now and will start my 3rd year with all day in September. I LOVE it. I do have some students who will be with me for a half day though. They leave after AM centers. We will sing a goodbye song to that student(s) after we have cleaned up and a teacher will take that student to their bus and the other adult continues with the routine with the others. I mentioned 2 things in here that I could elaborate more on in other blog posts. If you want to know more about ANYTHING, just comment below! I will definitely be doing posts at some point this summer on our song book and an update on happy sticks---that is so overdue! I hope you got something helpful out of this! **Update: I have created {editable} schedule cards just for you! You can use these in a pocket chart like mine, or display them however you choose! Head to my TpT store to check them out!
The best ideas in classroom organization including organizing bookshelves, creating a teacher cart, plus create the perfect teacher space!
Friends~I made the cutest Hurty Box for back to school! I have been working on a new author study to use with my class the first few weeks of school. I chose Helen Lester because her stories are wonderful for teaching character education and setting up a community of learners. My very favorite Helen Lester book is titled, Hurty Feelings. Besides having the sweetest cover, the character Fragility is the best. Basically, Fragility gets her feelings hurt easily and the other hippos don't want to play with her. She meets Rudy, the Bully Elephant and ends up hurting his feelings and she gets a taste of how she has been behaving. Click the image below to hear the story! I had so much fun creating activities for this story but my Hurty Box turned out so darn cute that I had to share it with you. Watch the video below to learn more about how I am using The Hurty Box in class in August! You can totally make your own cards to go inside or you can check out my new unit on TPT. Just click the cover below! It is filled with 31 pages of activities to use with the following 5 Helen Lester books: Grab a FREE download for Listen Buddy by clicking below. You can even make these adorable Buddies with your class. I had my students follow a set of verbal directions to tear construction paper to create their own version of buddy. It is a perfect listening activity for the beginning of the year and a lessons on differences. Each Buddy is unique!
When trouble is abound in your Preschool or Kindergarten classroom, Sandi is here to save the day! Sandi is an incredible, seasoned, and passionate Kindergarten teacher here to solve your preschool classroom management woes once and for all! Here are Sandi's 7 tips for making sure your Preschool classroom is running smooth and peaceful. Preschool
Read through our favorite classroom management hacks and then hop over and become a Plato Pack member for even more teaching tools, strategies and support.
What do you use for time management in your classroom? Do you rely on just what is written in your lesson plans? Or maybe you just go with the flow of the day. I have a confession… When I first started teaching, I was awful at time management. I never seemed to get ANYTHING done in […]
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
I just wanted to share a few things that got me through those very first few days with the children. Every year, and every group of children is exciting and different. Being flexible is probably …
Therapiematerial für Erwachsene im Schwerpunkt Sprache als Arbeitsblatt und Wortlisten und Texte. Fragen zur Wortfindung
Our school uses clip charts for behavior management. As of last year, it is mandatory that each classroom use a clip chart. Kindergarten ha...
Bulletin board found outside my classroom door. My name will go above the sign. Each of my student's names is on a bucket beneath. So, as promised, this might be a post all about Mighty Classroom. And, in the words of beloved MckMama: your retinas might bleed after looking at all of my educational eye-candy... Disclaimer: If you go by Nana, there is a pic of Baby B at the bottom of this post so you don't have to read through all the edu-babble without a little treat. Brace yourself... It's difficult to read, but this says Star Attendance & corresponds with our Star Behavior pictured beneath. When the kiddos arrive, they sign in and move their Attendance Star to our Star Behavior chart. My behavior management system is fairly similar to many others out there. Students begin the day on green, move to yellow for a warning, and then to red if they've had an awful, rotten, no-good, very bad day. Students with exceptional behavior get to move their stars to the Star Jar (not pictured), which is usually only a couple students per day. I then draw a star out at the end of the day (with lots of public fanfare, of course) and make a big to-do about awarding one student with a treat. They typically choose to pick out of the prize box, swap morning work for computer time, or complete their work at my desk and use all of my fun writing tools (pens, pencils, smelly markers, etc). For those of you who know me personally, you know what a big deal it is for me to share my beloved Sharpies with a 5-year-old. I mean, it took years of therapy to get me to that point. That, or my college roommates stealing borrowing them without my permission. Ahem, AllisonandKatie. After student perform their morning duties (signing in, attendance, unpacking, etc.), they check out the sectioned area to the right of the Star Behavior. It is there that I list what they are to do for the morning be it explore Math Tubs, complete a worksheet, read a book, or complete a page of a workbook. To the right of that is where I post our Daily/Weekly Graph for all to see. We work with the graph every day during the week during Morning Meeting, creating its various parts, copying it on a worksheet, discussing it, etc. Next, is Our Schedule. I haven't listed times yet because everything is so tentative in the beginning. They'll go and change my specials times or something and then I'd have an absolute conniption having to retype or laminate something. Also, everything will be backed with magnetic tape eventually. Again, I'm just waiting we're a month or so into the year. I intentionally skipped through the picture of my desk space because it's cramped an cluttered to afford my class extra space in our room. I was really aiming for space efficiency this year and did a lot of furniture moving to accomplish that. Unfortunately, my desk space had to suffer. No big deal though, since I spend ZERO part of my day sitting there... Above is our Calendar Wall and our meeting space. I adoooooore my white board on wheels (bottom lefthand corner), and so do the kidlets. Here are some up-close shots: Do you recognize the alphabet above? Yup, it's a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom alphabet and I totally scored it at a YARD SALE!!!! My heart just raced a little typing that. I think it was like a quarter. Here's our actual calendar and Webster the Weather Frog, aptly named by my sister, Chels, when she helped me set up my room last year. I referred to him as that since Day 1 and the kiddos loved him. I heard lots of I wanna dress Webster!!! throughout the year. The last of our wall contains our list of birthday, pocket chart place value (with straws) and the shapes. Moving along (are you dying yet?!) is our Environmental Print bulliten board (this will change as the year progresses), theme-book library, pointers, and our Calendar Math binders. Our number line continues over onto this wall from our Calendar Wall. And here's our cubbies that take up a whole lotta wall space. But it's okay. I make it work. This year we're the KinderKids accessorized by rainbows, clouds, and bright colors, with a smattering of unicorns, garden gnomes, and fairy dust thrown in (along with anything else good and lovely). Because kindergarten shouldn't be anything less. Atop our cubbies are my little tin buckets that I purchased for each of my students (crossing my fingers that my class doesn't exceed 25...and not just because that's how many buckets I bought). The buckets correspond with our Bucket Fill-osophy, and my plan is to fill each student's bucket with compliments as the year progresses and then gift it to them at the end of the year in a little Bucket Filling ceremony where I'll read each student's compliments to the class and give them a little award and cry a little bit over how amazing each of them is. Our word wall also spans this set of cubbies, the windows, and the next set of cubbies. Right now my students' names are listed there. Beneath the windows are shelves that house our book baskets, math tubs and manipulatives, ABC activities, puzzles, blocks, and the like. I didn't photograph it, but between the windows and the next area, there are more cubbies, our sink and cabinets, and my assistant's workspace (a coveted kidney-shaped table!). It looks boring right now, but when it's pretty maybe I'll take a pic. This is my Club Cadoozles bulletin board. If you're not familiar with Cadoozles, they're a mechanical pencil for little fingers. This year, I'm using them as a handwriting incentive. I haven't hammered out the details, but I'm thinking that when students can successfully write their alphabet (that means no confusing b's and d's or p's and q's!), then they'll get to do their writing with a Cadoozle. I'll use the bulletin board to advertise the names of the students in the club. Beneath that board is more ABC center activities. Next up is the Lightbulb Lab which is a writing center that I will stock full of fun materials to encourage {creative} writing and designing. Our computers are here also. I was inspired by Kevin Henkes' Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse for this center and can't wait to introduce my kids to it. And, what would my classroom be without a little ADPi delight sprinkled in? I'm sure it comes as no surprise to my fellow Pi girls that our service learning project is collecting poptabs for the Ronald McDonald House. And collect them we did! We collected 5 BIG houses full of them and used the tabs as math manipulatives to help us learn subtration. This tri-fold board was from a seminar last year and will be used in a mini-lesson to explain this project. It might be 10:04pm. I might be tired. Tired from typing, typing, typing. Tired from student loan strife (HELP ME OBAMA). Tired because I chased after Mr. On-the-Move all day. And, because my mom complains that she doesn't like my blog unless there is a picture of sweet precious posted, here ya go ;)
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
A Kindergarten blog where content, creativity & rigor collide! Also specializing in guided reading, writing workshop, classroom organization & more.
Was I really willing to abandon such a needy group of children in the middle of the school year? I felt selfish. But I had to do it.
I absolutely LOVE IKEA and even though the closest one to me is about 3 hours away, I always make a point to go a couple of times a year. A few years ago, I did a post on items from IKEA that teachers can use in their classrooms. You can check out that post HERE (most of those things are still available!). Below are some of my finds from my most recent trip... There are tons of alternative seating options at IKEA. Most of the office type chairs are sold in two parts... the seat and then the base. The seat part is a great floor seat.. similar to the rocker chairs people are using. Here are just a couple of the options that I thought looked the most comfortable and affordable... If you need some basic stools for your students to sit on while they work... IKEA has some awesome cheap rugs. The rugs I bought for less than $5 over 5 years ago are still holding up and look great (even after 180 days of use a year by primary students). I use rugs for silent reading but also for my low table where students sit on the ground. These are a few of the rug options... I grabbed up two of these larger circle rugs... my kiddos will love them! Two students can fit on them for partner reading. I loved this green dot rug.. look at the price! You can't really tell the size but this would be a great rug in a small area where 3 or 4 kiddos could sit and play a game together. This would be a great addition to any classroom. IKEA has tons of deals like this! They also have a TON of chair pads.. the ones with the strings that you tie to the back of the chair. these would also be great for your floor kiddos. I picked up these round versions that go on stools... they have rubbery grippers on the back that will prevent them from sliding on hard floors. If you are looking for "spots" to keep your students in one place while sitting on the rug these could be an option... they are actually placemats! They have a rubbery backing so they won't slip on laminate flooring and are just the right size for primary kiddos. This is a longer cushion pad... two kiddos would fit perfect on this for partner read! I wish I had about 12 of these! If you want to go kind of big and you are looking for a couch, this is so cute. I almost grabbed this up but couldn't decide on a color... It comes in yellow or a dark gray. These stools are so cute... they would be great at a tall table. The don't wobble and are sturdy. They have a ton of other stool options. I love stools because they can be stacked or pushed under tables so easily! Here are some lower stool options. They will work on regular height tables. If you are brave enough for pillows (I always tell my kids no heads on the pillows....if you get my drift) they have a ton of cheap options. This dish rack would be perfect for organizing tablets! Just slide the tablets into the slots and place any iPods into the silverware holder portion. I purchased this shelving unit (in white) to transform my fluency station... These picture frames are perfect for displaying learning objectives at small groups.... If you can screw into walls and cabinets these would be perfect for so many purposes... displaying student work, displaying pics from the year or I think they would be great for hanging headphones. Just slip the headphone over the wire and you are good to go! This is my dream item at IKEA...I would love to have two of these to hold my differentiated tubs for literacy and math rotations. It holds 12 drawers (3 drawers for each group) that can hold different leveled materials. If you want to whimsically figure up your data this calculator is super cute...I would love for my principal to come in while I am punching in numbers on this ridiculous thing... I have never seen this section in IKEA before (maybe it's new or I am just blind) but they have cute party favor type decor. I often use the tissue balls in my classroom. I love these options! This section also had these number paperclips and quotation paper clips. These would be a fun little teacher gift! I also grabbed up this cheap tub to store rugs and pillows. Finally what my kiddos will be most excited about BEADS (for fun friday). These are super cheap! IKEA also has these rolls of paper (should have grabbed a dozen for my artsy kiddos!) for super cheap! What items do you use from IKEA in your classroom? If you have any questions make sure to leave them in the comment section!
