Hi everyone! It's Kim again from Elementary Antics and I am so excited to share about The Blurt Box! A couple of years ago I had a pretty tough class. I had some amazing kiddos, but a few of them just loved to talk, push each other's buttons and were extremely impulsive. I tried proximity control to help these students' behaviors- they sat next to my desk or table when working independently, in the very front row at the carpet, etc. I tried partnering them with another student that modeled good behaviors, partnering them with a student that they could "help", praising good behavior, sticker charts- I basically felt like I tried everything I knew. At that point I wasn't a new teacher and I had always had excellent classroom management, but I felt like I was failing. I was constantly having to stop during lessons to redirect someone's attention, remind someone to stop talking or stop calling out despite going over the expectations beforehand each time. It was driving me nuts and I felt badly for the kids who were always paying attention and following the rules. After some reflection, I determined that the main behavior that I needed to target was the blurting or calling out in class and during whole group lessons. I had a handful of kiddos that were doing this consistently and it was disruptive. So, I turned to Google and started searching for an idea that might help me since everything I had tried before just wasn't cutting it. That's when I found The Blurt Box, well it wasn't called The Blurt Box per se, but that's what we called it in my classroom. The idea was basically this: Use nonverbal signals to stop the blurting- red paper squares. The first thing I did was call my kiddos to our carpet (class meeting area) and explained to them again exactly what blurting was and why we were not doing it. I made a sign on a 8x11 piece of paper that said "NO BLURTING" and taped it to my easel and onto my whiteboard. I told them that anytime someone blurted out when it was inappropriate to do so I would not be reminding them of our rules again. I would simply point to the sign and hand them a red square. That's it. At the end of the lesson, or when it was appropriate, they would write their name and date on the square and put it in the "Blurt Box". At the end of the first day, I dumped out all of the red squares and tallied up the squares for each student. The students with red squares had them stapled to a behavior sheet which was sent home and signed by a parent. This was just to show the parent that their student needed to start showing a little bit more self control and reign in the impulsive behaviors. Any students that did not receive any red squares that day got a green square. And any student that had a green square that day got a special treat (I was implementing this around Halloween so my treats consisted of little erasers {Target Dollar Deals section}, cool googily eyed stickers, pencils, etc.) and a behavior sheet with their green square stapled to it to be signed by a parent and returned. Every time a green square behavior sheet was turned it it was put in a special basket and I would draw a couple of names throughout the day to get a special something as extra incentive- usually a small candy like Starburst or Smarties. I did this every day for one week. I know it sounds like a lot of work- and it was. I had to plan to leave an extra 10 minutes at the end of my day every day that week to tally the squares and hand out behavior sheets and treats. But, IT WAS WORTH IT! The first day we had over 60 red squares and by the end of the week we had 10! Even my paraprofessional who would come in about an hour a day was commenting on how amazing the students were doing- especially my couple who were the extreme cases. Most students went from a red day to a green day by the end of the week. And those who didn't made huge improvements in the amount of times they were calling out and I made sure to celebrate those accomplishments with them and make sure their parent knew about them too. I obviously could not keep up the daily tallying forever, so after the first week I still gave out red square each time someone blurted or called out at an inappropriate time, but I only gave out a green square if they had no red squares after 2 days, then 4 days, then each week. After a few weeks, I just would point to my sign and that was it. This method was a huge success for me and I hope it can help you the year you find yourself with a class full of blurters! Follow my Classroom Management board on Pinterest for more great ideas!