Behavior Management in the Classroom

hey guys today I wanted to talk to you about behavior management in the classroom when I've done my video on a day in my life a lot of you left a comment about how well my students were working and how did I achieve that behavior in my classroom so I want to talk to you about my overall classroom behavior management plan and what it is that I do to get my kids engaged to keep them on task and to manage all of those little behaviors that happen in the classroom so before I start talking about my behavior management I want to kind of give you my analogy of behavior in the classroom so I like to think of a classroom as a really long road trip when you first get into the car you're excited it's fun it's new you can't wait for all of the great adventures that are about to happen and you're getting along great with everyone in the car well after a while of driving you start to kind of get a little antsy and you're moving you're kind of tired you're ready to get out of the car to stretch your legs so you need a break and that's kind of my reference to like Thanksgiving break and and Christmas break towards the very end of that road trip you are about to rip each other's heads off you are tired of each other you're getting irritated you don't want to be around those people anymore you just want to get out stretch your legs and kind of go and have your own space in your own time and this is so much like the classroom because in the beginning you know the kids are excited it's fun it's new you don't really know each other yet you're starting to learn about each other and as it goes on you get some of those much needed breaks so that you can kind of walk away from each other and do your own thing and just kind of stretch your legs right and then towards the very end you know each other so well and you're about sick of each other and your kids are fighting and there's a lot of behaviors that are happening inside of a classroom so I wanted to talk to you about what it is that I do to start handling some of those behaviors the first thing that I want to talk to you about is routines and procedures it is so important to set up those routines and procedures in the class room for me and the very beginning of the year I kind of sit down and I think about all of the different things that I want my students to be doing how are they going to come in and unpack what are they going to do as soon as they come in how are they going to know what to do what are some things that could happen you know kids might be fighting over certain things they might say that one of them is theirs and you want to make sure that you are prepared to handle all of those different types of behaviors and some of it yes you're going to be able to anticipate beforehand and some of it is just going to have to be with time for my veteran teachers out there you kind of already already know about those but if you're a first year teacher or you're still in school and you're ready to become a teacher some of those behaviors and things that you're going to see is just going to be over time you're going to learn what's happening in the classroom so don't feel bad if you don't get everything right away in the very first time now some of those routines and procedures my kids will already know what it is that I want them to do because I will explicitly tell them exactly what to do I will show it to them I will tell it to them and then I will have them tell it to me as far as what they have and then I usually also keep up some type of visual in my classroom so that they can always reference back to it and they'll know exactly what to do for those other routines and procedures that I don't explicitly tell my students this is where I want them to learn to build those expectations those routines those procedures together so what I do is I have my students kind of try to just deal with the problem as it is and you're like why that's crazy well hear me out let me give you an example - at the beginning of the year I don't give I don't give morning work for my students I will let them have a lot of social play a lot of free choice time because I want them building language I want them talking with students and I want them to kind of get out of their comfort zone now it's so typical that in that very first in that very beginning they are playing by themselves but they're playing around other students they're very quiet they don't say much to each other so it's not like they come in loud Rowdy in the beginning so something that I do notice that happens quite a bit is that my students will all kind of gravitate to one box and they'll all want to play inside with all the toys in that one box once I start realizing what happens we'll clean up we'll come to the carpet I say guys y'all doing really well you were so very quiet but I noticed something I noticed that there was this one box and not a lot of you were able to have toys you were having problems sharing with it why do you think that is and majority of the time a lot of them will raise their hand and say well there because there was too many of us at that one area now so well that's a really great thought I want us to think about how can we fix this how can we make sure that there's enough toys for everyone that wants to play in this box and during this entire conversation that I'm having with my students I'm guiding them to the answer that I want them to give me I want them to give me that there should only be three people for each box in that area so but I'm having them build all of that and they're really learning from each other because they feel like they're the ones coming up with the routine they feel like they're the ones coming up with that rule so once we get that situated the next day my students will come in and they of course they all understand that there's supposed to be three people for each box but then the next problem arises there are five or six box in one carpet area which then there's not enough space for students to play and then two it gets loud because they're so close to each other that they're trying to start to talk over it over one another so we clean up we come back to the carpet and I say guys this is what I noticed and I'll tell them what it is that I see again I'm guiding them to the answer that I want them to give me and that's it that they need to spread out and that there should only be certain amount of boxes for each area so again we're building those routines and procedures together another example is lining up well we can't all line up at the exact same time but I let them so when I say all right line up let's go to let's go to lunch now also keep in mind that if I know that I'm going to have this time to talk about the routine in the procedure and try to have us set it up together I'm going to want to make sure that I have efficient amount of time for us to discuss this so versus us lining up in they're only taking three minutes I may know that it's going to take 10 to 15 minutes because I'm going to set procedures and routines during this time so when we line up imma say oh goodness I noticed this happen and this happen and so we're going to sit down we'll talk about it we'll create an anchor chart of how it is that we line up and we will build that together so that my students have an ownership and they understand and they truly grasp what it is that they're expected to do so in the beginning of the year it's all about those routines all about procedures and creating them together I don't like to just sit there and tell my students everything that they're supposed to do because they're not really learning from that they're not learning how to correct their mistakes they're not being problem solvers they're just listening to this person who's mad at them all the time yelling at them of why they're not doing it the way they're supposed to be doing it so make sure that you are giving your children a lot of opportunities to discuss the expectations and procedures and learning how to build some of those rules together speaking of rules I know that this is a big one in classrooms so many classrooms have rules and they say well this is what we're going to do these are the rules everyone needs to follow them I don't have rules in my classroom I never tell my student what rules we have in the classroom I go about the three rules that we have for the school and that's what I tell my students guys I don't have rules in this classroom and that's not to say that we're all going to get to do whatever it is that we want to do not at all it is just the fact that this is a class we're a family were a community and we're going to deal with the problems that arise together so I tell them the three rules that we have is as a school and I love these three rules because so many different things fall in these in the three and that's one respect your teachers and to respect your peers and three is work hard so I tell them that it's those three rules all the time and they understand that they understand the the three rules and I tell them guys if you're playing are you working hard now are you respecting your teacher no not at all so I stick by my three rules for the school so I talked about the three rules for the school in my classroom and I tell my students guys we don't do rules in the classroom but we will follow the rules of school because so many different things followed underneath those three rules it fits perfectly for what I want so something that I want to hit on a little bit is that so many times teachers and parents feel like kids should just know what to do that they should just know what's expected of them and they should just do it like why is this so hard right well we have to step back and we have to remember one their kids um - they may not know exactly what it is that they're supposed to be doing they're just kind of making it up as they go and thinking that it's the right thing or three someone has taught them wrong so I try to step back and think of it from that perspective of either one you don't know what to do or two someone has taught you wrong it is my job as a teacher to help you correct that behavior to understand why it is the incorrect behavior and what are some of the different strategies that we can use to correct that behavior so it doesn't happen again so I want to create thinkers in my room and at the beginning of the year that's something I really emphasize to my parents I set them down during our first meet the teacher and I let them understand that hey guys I'm not here to just get on to your child I'm not here to you know give them rewards and candies and all these wonderful cute little wonderful great things I'm here to make a thinker out of your child I'm here to create problem children who problem-solve and I'm here to make great citizens to make hard-working great citizens that is my goal as a teacher so when you walk into my classroom there's no behavior charts anywhere displayed is in the room there's no rules displayed in the room because I want them to know what is expected of them I don't want them coming in and thinking the only thing that I want to do is go to the treasure box or the only thing I want to do is get a hole punch or I just want to clip up that's not what I expect I don't expect them to clip I don't expect them to get a hole-punch I expect them to do what it is that they are supposed to be doing and I want my students to understand that and at this point in the year they all get that they know that miss Backman is not one that just likes to give out rewards that the best and the biggest thing that I can do for you is make you feel feel like a king or queen when you do something right because I will let the whole world know how wonderful and how great you are so in my classroom I don't do a lot of behavior charts or behavior strategies now I do have other things that I do but a lot of it is going to be talking with my students brainstorming with my students and then giving them different strategies that they can use to help them solve problems so in the beginning of the year I will tell you it is tiring it is very exhausting but it is so worth it because by the time we get to October and November my students know exactly what to do they know what is expected of them and they're going to do it something else that we do at the beginning of the year is that we practice expectations and routines over and over and over again and I will even have to pull this out during the middle and doing during the end of the year so if you've heard about the daily 5 or if you do the daily 5 in your classroom you know that the sisters talk about building stamina for reading and about how you start little and you keep come back you talk about what happened and then you go back down and let them read some more and as soon as you see somebody do something wrong you bring them back in and you talk about it and you give them another chance well I take that into my routines and my procedures as well if my students don't do something the way that they're supposed to do it I send them back to where they were we sit down we'll talk about it and then we'll try it again and if they still don't do it right up so sorry let's go back to where we were here's what happened this is how we're going to fix it and then we go back and we try it over and over and over again so I make sure that they understand that hey guys there is no oh man I can get away with this and I can get away with that and it she's not going to say anything to me mm-hmm it is you're going to do it the way that your expected to do it every single time and again it is exhausting I'm not going to say that it isn't but it is so worth it because your students are going to do it every single time after that if you show them that you are not going to let up that you're not going to just kind of see past it and that you are sticking to what your decision is every single time they're not going to try to get away with things in your room so make sure that you have kind of that heavy foot and faint nope you're not going to do that in my room and this is how we're supposed to do it every single time and you make sure that they understand that they're going to respect you for it and they're going to do exactly what is expected and what you want something else that I have at the beginning of the year are high expectations I feel like so many times people will say well they're just so young they can't do that we need to stop making excuses for our kids because they're smart and they're capable and they are able to do the things that you want them to do and so many times you know I feel like as teachers and as parents you know we try to make an excuse for them and say well this is why don't make excuses set your expectations high because if you have those high expectations and you expect your students to get there they will get there it may take them time they may need support with it and they may need practice at it but they will get there so set those high expectations don't make excuses for your students and let them get there I feel like if you show them that you have those high expectations you know a lot of the times kids just want to feel accepted they want to feel like they're doing a great job I mean think about it as you I want to feel accepted I want to feel like I'm doing a great job I want to feel like people notice the good things that I'm doing so if people are setting those high expectations for me I'm going to try to reach them because I want someone to recognize me I want someone to stop and say whoa you're doing a great job and when that happened it just sets the bar even higher and they want to reach that for you so make sure that you're setting some of those high expectations don't make excuses for your students show them how to do it correct it together as a class and then move on so the next thing I want to talk to you guys about behavior management are going to be those behaviors that you start to see between students now a lot of the times teachers are going to relate this to tattling and tattling is one of my biggest pet peeves it absolutely drives me crazy when students come up to me to tell me about what another student is done or to tell me that this student isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing and they feel like they're doing a great job by doing that and I tell my students listen I'm so glad that you noted that notice this behavior and I'm so glad that you know what is expected but right now that is not on my top priority I want you to think about how you can help me by fixing this what can you do to fix this problem so in my classroom tour a lot of you noticed the round wheel that I had in my classroom and this is on my big book stand so it's like right there in their face when they are sitting at my carpet and this little behavior wheel is plays a huge part at the beginning of the year with handling some of those tattling and some of those student behaviors between each other so in the beginning of the year we have our morning meeting and every day I like to present them with a problem and I say guys listen I have this friend named sue and Sue has this problem and she says that you guys are great thinkers and she wants us to help her so I will write out the problem and I'll say you know what sue what has this friend Joe who was sitting next to who sits next to her and Joe just keeps talking and talking and talking and talking well sue gets in trouble every time Joe talks and she doesn't like it what do you guys think she can do so I tell my kids that problem and then we start talking about it and I said well let's look at our wheel let's think about what which one these choices might be the best for her so a lot of those times my students will say to walk away to go somewhere else to find a different spot so I tell my students okay here's what I want you to do today I want you to try to think about how you can do this strategy today think about a behavior or something that might happen today and then today in the afternoon when we come back and we sit down and reflect on our day I want to see who can share who has used that strategy and can share how they used it so we talked about the strategies I've put a lot of problems into my morning message that my students will have to solve as far as behaviors and a lot of the times when you notice some of those behaviors during my warm-up or I'm sorry during my reflection times during writing or reading and math I usually incorporate a lot of those problem-solving behaviors during that time so that's the time when we sit down and we really talk about what are those behaviors that I noticed and how it could be fixed them and this entire time guys I'm creating anchor charts they're our anchor charts everywhere for things that we could be doing to help fix some of those those issues that may happen in the classroom so it's just another great way for my students to understand and have a place to go to find strategies that will help them in solving their own issues so the last thing that I want to talk to you guys about is the positive rewards and the consequences for behavior so I don't have anything big in my classroom I don't talk to you guys about how I don't have rules or I don't have any of the charts or anything like that but I did want to incorporate something that could give my kids rewards because I mean like who doesn't love rewards for us it would be pay raises a little you know whoo-hoo-hoo raw kind of things from our principals here and there so I wanted them to have something like that and I also wanted to make sure that parents were involved and they understood what was happening in the classroom on a daily basis now I don't know if I would do this so much for the upper grades as I would for the lower grades for upper grades I feel like I would have higher expectations for them at that point because they've had so many years within a school setting that they should understand a lot of those things at that point um so I would typically keep around kindergarten first grade so I have a monthly behavior chart and it's pretty much just a calendar why I write down the days and I have little boxes for me to be able to fill in anything so on days where I don't have to tell my students over and over and over again I will give them a smiley face for having a good day for those days where I have to constantly redirect and kind of help them along the way I will write down that we had a hard time doing this or doing that and let parents be aware of this every day parents have to sign this and then send it back to me now here's where the positive rewards come into play so after five smiley faces and they do not have to be consecutive my students will get to go to the charger box or they get to a coupon so it is their choice as far as which one they get now again it doesn't have to be consecutive so let's say a student comes in and on Monday they got a smiley face to say they got a little notes at home but Wednesday Thursday Friday they did great come next week Monday didn't do so great but on Tuesday they had a better day so on Tuesday that's when we would have our fifth smiley face and I would let that student go to the treasure box or go get a coupon so that's how I do behaviors I don't really do anything big or huge it's just something simple it's something small and I don't make so much of a big deal about it for consequences I like to make sure that those would follow along the same lines as the behavior so let's say for instance that I have a student that's playing during independent time or during reading time at that point I say baby listen I understand that you're playing right now so you know what we're going to have to do is that during your play time I want you reading because you're taking away from your learning and you're taking away from my time which isn't fair so during their recess time I would require them to read let's say I have a student who's throwing markers or crayons across the room I would simply go up to that student and say baby listen you right now you were throwing markers across the room that is not how we use our markers right now markers are supposed to be on the table they are meant for coloring so I'm going to take those markers or crayons away and I'm going to put them at my table and I'm going to tell my student listen whenever you're writing to decide that you can make those good choices I want you to come back up to me and tell me that you want those back I don't like to tell my students when they can have things back I want to make sure that I'm allowing students to take that responsibility and understand what it is that they are ready to make those better choices so when they are ready they come up to me and say mrs. Backman I understand that throwing markers across the room was not okay markers are supposed to be at my table I promise to leave my markers at my table and use them for coloring only when they tell me that I give them their markers back and they can go right along their way now this could be one to two minutes right after what happened and that's okay I don't like to make a big deal about it because if they realize what they did wrong and they really are willing to correct it don't keep it dragging on and on and on just fix it and then move on let's say I have a student cue is rolling around on my carpet or who is constantly calling out I would say listen I understand that right now you have a lot of things that you want to say and you are really excited about sharing it and I'm so happy that you are really ready to learn but right now it is not fair to someone else because you're not letting them think so I need you to go to your table and when you are ready to come back to my carpet and make better choices then please let me know again I'm allowing that student to go back to their table table I'm taking them away from where the behavior is occurring and there are given some think time and when they're ready to come back and make those better choices then they can do that again I don't make a big deal about it I don't drag it on forever and I get past it it's not something where we have to make them feel awful about let them just understand that okay I know that I did this wrong I know I need to fix it and done it's over that behavior is over we're moving past it and we're going to keep doing what we're supposed to be doing I don't want the behavior behavior to be the focus of my day I want learning and having fun to be the focus of my so when those little behaviors happen I deal with it right away I take whatever it is that the behaviors are occurring around away from them and I let them make that choice for whenever they are ready to do the right thing so let's have a quick recap so the beginning I talked to you guys about routines and procedures and really allowing students to help you set up some of those routines and procedures next I talked to you about individual student behaviors between each other and they're typically that tattling behavior that will happen so allowing your students give them strategies that they can use in order to go and fix those behaviors is going to be the most beneficial in the beginning you don't want to constantly fix things for them remember you're wanting to create thinkers and you're wanting them to learn how to problem-solve themselves if we are constantly doing that all for them they're not being thinkers they're being very dependent on us and that's not what we want as teachers we want them to be independent and last I gave you some great ideas for my rewards and my consequences my rewards I don't really make a big deal about it because I want my students to understand the expectations and I just want them to do the right thing I don't want them to feel like they are constantly just wanting rewards I want them to make that choice to do the right thing all the time and last for consequences I make sure that the consequence is related to the behavior if throwing markers across the room is the problem that I'm going to take the markers away but another thing you want to remember is that you don't want the consequence to last for an extended period of time don't drag it on guys if they if the student recognizes what they did was wrong and they're willing to correct it and they can tell you how to correct it get it back to them and move on again you don't want to make it a big deal because they're learning they're little they're kids they're going to make mistakes you have to remember that no one is perfect and a lot of the times we want them to be perfect all the time well they're not so remember that enjoy them let them have fun let them make mistakes and let them learn from those mistakes I feel like by allowing your students to learn from their mistakes they're going to really take more ownership and they're going to understand that behavior and they're going to be able to fix it they're learning to build those problem-solving skills in the end so I hope you guys have got some really great ideas as far as what I do for classroom behavior and classroom management I know that there are other behaviors that can happen within a classroom setting and I'm going to do a different video on that because I feel like I can drag on and on and on so I'll do a separate video on just specific behaviors and what I would do for those types of behaviors but this was just more of my general classroom management and classroom behavior system so again I hope you guys got some really great ideas if you have any questions please make sure to leave them down below and as always guys if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and I will talk to you guys really soon bye a big son and I already had the circles pre-cut and I had the rectangles pre-cut this was on a cardstock and they had to cut that out themselves for the cloud but I

Channel: The Lettered Classroom

Views: 222,780

Rating: 4.8998914 out of 5

Keywords: classroom management, behavior management, the lettered classroom, bridget spackman, kindergarten, tips and ideas on classroom management

Id: _EgENjrrEq0

Length: 27min 38sec (1658 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 28 2016