Classroom Management for Elementary Teachers | A Positive Classroom Environment | Teacher Tips

I'm April from teach travel re welcome back to my channel the sweet sounds of Summer peace relaxation but if you're anything like me you're still thinking about school unfortunately it happens that's okay we can do it this series is going to be all about classroom management one of the most crucial aspects to make your year Thrive it's not easy and one thing they don't tell us is undergrads going into teaching that we have to start over every single year every year it's a different group of students every year we got to train and teach those kids no matter if you're a kindergarten teacher all the way through high school so we're going to focus on several different things throughout this series of videos about classroom management but for today's video we are going to focus on a positive classroom environment a positive classroom environment is the foundation for a solid successful classroom if you don't have this Foundation to start the year the rest of the year is not going to go smoothly now let's be real sometimes no matter what we do there's chaos in the classroom there's there's going to be disruptions there's going to be disagreement or see even sometimes a lack of respect it's frustrating okay so I completely understand that but don't worry I've been there and today we are going to tackle this together so grab your favorite beverage sit on back maybe even grab a notebook and let's get started [Music] okay so first up when setting up that positive classroom environment we want to think about organization and decor and you may think why do we want to focus on that when it's I need to work on having my students build their relationships with each other we're going to get to that but first we want to think about how when those students first walk in from that very first moment what are they going to see a classroom in chaos and disarray leads to chaos and disarray versus a beautifully organized classroom well designed is going to create a more calming and organized manner for your students we want our classrooms to be welcoming and engaging for our students so there are different ways that you can do this one way I like to do it is by arranging the desk into groups so depending on your classroom setup maybe you have tables maybe you have individual desks maybe you have um kind of a partner group kind of depends on the furniture that is provided to you but since I'm provided with desk I like to arrange them within groups of four or five I have done more than five in the past and I have learned that that does not work well um too many in a group causes that chaos which was the opposite of what I was trying to do so I I tend to go towards four or five in a group and I'll show you the layout here in just a moment of how I like to design my classroom we want to think about when we arrange the furniture how are we going to make sure there are clear Pathways for ourselves and the students to move around the room if everything's kind of clumped together or is scattered out again that in our mind subconsciously we don't even realize that that's happening but it's creating that chaos in our minds so therefore it's going to lead to some more chaos we also want to think about where we have areas set up in the classroom for different activities so maybe you have a reading Nook in one spot maybe you have um a science area in another spot maybe you have a calm down Corner um in another spot maybe you have your own teacher area cuz we know we need that um set up in a designated location so think about how you're going to organize the classroom so everything everything works well um throughout and it's easy to find the materials and supplies you need as well as the students know exactly where to go for different activities okay so within my classroom um my furniture is still arranged so the custodians have not cleaned my classroom yet this summer but that's totally fine um and so you can kind of see exactly how my classroom is arranged so I do have my table groups here um the chairs are just stacked um that was what the students did the last day of school is they stacked all the chairs but you can see I do create it so there's a nice easy way that we can walk around we have our front meeting area for when we do morning meetings or whole group instruction types of things so I have everything is still set up how it was um throughout the school year sometimes I change up the arrangement here and there throughout um the school year but this is basically how it is s's dog she's just here with me because it's submer so another part of when we're thinking about our classroom environment creating a very positive environment we want to think about our decorations um and when I'm talking about decorations I'm a person who's very minimalistic I don't like everything to be covered I don't want all the walls to be covered I don't want tons of colors everywhere because again that leads to chaos so the more you have on the walls the more distracting it is for your students the harder it is to keep that classroom management under control and again it seems like a weird thing to have to say but it's true I've actually had parents who come into my room for back to school night and they're like wow I love your room and I think to myself I don't have any decorations um but I've learned over the years it's because they want that for their children they want that minimalism because when they see really brightly colored classrooms with a lot happening on the walls a lot of decorations a lot of colors it's very distracting and hard for kids to focus so when we look at trends of colors and we see a lot of the boho natural um types of Trends it's because it's much more calming for students so I'm personally very minimalistic when it comes to my decorations I love black and white those are my two favorite colors and then I just add in some pops of color here and there throughout the classroom to kind of complement that I did recently just purchased um some new Decor to put up around the classroom again I wouldn't use all different parts of this it's really just picking and choosing what I want but I want this little light bulb bu theme um from school girl style I found this recently um and so I see there are some pops of color here but thinking about what can I do to incorporate this into my classroom but again keep it so that it's not overwhelming and distracting for the students okay so as um you can see my Decor is very much whoops um my Decor is very much lots of black and white very minimalistic type of of Decor um I do keep it like that I do have more things posted throughout the school year obviously in terms of Decor um we don't have to take everything off of our walls for the summer so I know some people don't have that luxury and have to do more throughout but we do not have to take things down so you can see I just have a borders um I have some posters over here again with the diversity one thing I do want to share in terms of when I'm talking about the decor you can see that all of my bullets and board walls are plain and they're like that all the time so years ago um a fire marshall came through our building and said there's too much paper on the walls and so people had to start using less of paper I actually have loved it because I used to compl completely cover bulletin boards um that rues already set when I started working in this building and so I love it because one it's less work for me to have to deal with bulletin board paper but two I do think it helps with that calm and clean look less is more when it comes to that so I keep that um completely off the walls I don't do any bullet and board paper for anywhere here on my cabinets in the back of the room is where I keep my word wall throughout the year that the students can reference so as we do different things I have that there now the other thing I want to share is when it comes to putting up your um information in the classroom make sure that what you're putting up for the students is useful for them um so when we think about in terms of in the elementary school sometimes we just want to put up all the things and we got to think about what is most useful for the students what can they use as a reference as they're learning so when we're using anchor charts think about just at that moment in time what anchor chart can you put up I do use a word wall in fifth grade where we put up words vocabulary words and Greek Latin roots that we have practiced and the students reference that all the time that is a good use of that space you also also want to make sure everything stays nice and neat and organized so when you're organizing your materials don't just throw things around the classroom again seeing the chaos creates the chaos so you want to think about how can I put my material specifically in a place I have Sterilite three drawer systems where I pull out the drawers to put things in I have a label on the front and that creates a beautiful organized system the students will then follow step and see oh I need to work on my organization too about organization in the classroom and the more things are organized the more calm and and easy it is for not only us and the students just life in general so I actually have things organized um specifically for myself back here in my teacher area I keep um different things on hand as you can see I don't have any labels for this one yet but I do have some labels and these are ailable for purchase in my TPT store you can check those out down below they're editable um I have snarky comments on mine so like for example um on it says Monday time to grade all the papers that sat in my bag over the weekend like just funny things um I would find humor as a as a teacher but some of my students when they read them they think they're funny too but I do have organization things for the students as well so over here I actually have some Turnin trays so I have three three trays again where they turn in those materials um that they need to turn in for me again I have some funny sayings on here so like this one yeah if you could put your name on your paper that'd be great um I do have one alluding to Taylor Swift song and one to Harry Potter on there again in my TPT store and then I also have um this so I've done mailboxes return folders and a lot of different over the years this has become the easiest when it comes to spacewise very easy to be seen um literally right there but again they have to take the responsibility to go pull those materials out of their folder you could also do something that like that for turning in um if you want it sorted by the student as opposed to or even by subject um as opposed to a Sterilite drawer again another option for you also think about where you're going to put supplies um are the students holding their own supplies are you sharing supplies I have a system where we do both things some things they do individually in their desk some things we share as as a class and so thinking about where we're going to store all of those things again making sure things are labeled and neatly organized for the students to be able to find this will help them with their organization skills as well and keep that calm demeanor within the classroom environment now in terms of keeping things organized and um making sure that responsibility is being followed expectations I do have these drawers and this was actually from a former colleague she actually um had her room set up like that and I was like oh out I love that so we actually have little bins within there that have crayons and markers I have some other drawers that have think extra supplies pencils pens we have um scissors all kinds of things within these drawers as well to help us with that organization again creating that calm atmosphere as to what we need to do in the classroom now we also want to think about how are we creating a warm and inclusive environment for our students so every morning I stand at the door and I greet my students as they walk in I say good morning address them by name try to make sure I'm smiling sometimes at 7:30 that's not as easy on certain days but I want to be there because I want to create that environment where they're welcomed in that may be the first good morning or smile they've seen yet you never know what a student is walking into the classroom feeling okay so here I am outside my classroom um in full disclosure it is summer break um so things look maybe a little bit different than typical but when my students arrive in the morning I'm literally standing right here ready to greet them as they walk in the door smile good morning hello say their name Etc just that simple gesture sets that positive tone for the day if I'm walking in at the same time as my students that sets a very different tone for the day if I'm sitting off in the corner scalling that's going to set a very different tone for the day okay again it's not a perfect science but all of these things will lead up to creating that positive classroom environment you also want to think about creating a class mission statement or a class motto for your students to focus on so think about a set of values work on it together within the first few weeks of school and have the students um come up with it with you you can definitely steer them towards certain things um and depending on the age is going to make a big difference and in how much they can formulate themselves and how much teacher Direction they need but think about what can you do to again create that inclusivity within your classroom I like following a class Constitution because I teach fifth grade we focus on American history in fifth grade and so I focus on a class Constitution and so we read through a book called We the Kids and read read through the Preamble we discuss what it means based on the vocabulary and the pictures in the book and then we write out a constitution and we come up with some words that we want to choose um to really promotes and focus on as our class I write it down on a large piece of anchor chart paper and then the students sign their names we have it displayed up on the wall and we can refer back to it all the time to make sure that we are following that Constitution those complete rules that we are expected to follow each and every day you also want to make sure your classroom materials focus on the diversity not only of in your class but in the world is how I see it um there's a famous phrase for reading that's talking about doors windows and then now or no doors windows one yeah Windows Doors and now I say the sliding glass um because you want to be able to open and go out but also be able to see through um but being able to adjust as well so thinking about within your classroom do you have posters that represent diversity from around the world do your classroom materials represent so the novels that you're reading in in the classroom the books in your classroom Library making sure all of those things represent diversity within the world especially the students within your class one year I had a student who came up to me and he goes thank you and I was like for what and he said because this is the first time I've seen myself represented in a classroom library and that was in fifth grade that was so impactful to hear him say that and I have made sure since then that I am always choosing books that represent all cultural cultures from around the world now in the positive classroom environment let's talk about student ownership and responsibility yes that's part of it okay so when we're talking about how to give students ownership and some responsibility a lot of times teachers go first to thinking okay what classroom jobs can my students do absolutely have them help now thinking about here in 2024 I've noticed this trend for a while I've tried individual student jobs and I've tried team jobs some students take it very seriously and work really hard on it and then other students could not care less so I think what I'm going to try this coming school year is a helper like maybe a couple helpers for the whole week the students who are in charge of helping with attendance and lunch count making sure pencils are sharpened making sure passing out papers just a couple students and just I'm going to try it and see if that creates a difference in our classroom environment stay tuned I'll give you some feedback on how that goes but if that's not your jam then go for the classroom jobs whether you like the individual or the teamwork jobs you do you another way to think about student ownership and responsibility in creating that positive environment is through the use of a morning meeting um this is something that I've done from the very beginning of my teaching career um for some reason in the past like seven years or so it's like become a huge focus in Seal um to me it's been imperative forever so I'm not sure what happened there where our shift went from um that to only academics now we're going back to that um should have been in there all along let me get off my so box now um but anyways thinking about how you can create that Community for your students um so I spend time at the beginning of the year setting up and establishing those routines and expectations for our meeting and different activities that we do things that we discuss and things that we learn about and then in fifth grade I start to give some of that ownership to the students I have them start doing some leading of morning meetings and activities um and adding that in again it creates a great classroom environment it starts the day off on the right foot by getting us all on the same page discussing things sharing things it's not just talking about our agenda for the day which is included in part of our discussion so we know what's going on but we also want to make sure that we're covering other things as well this would be a great time to even have students work on setting goals so every week we have a goal that we focus on as a class it might be um related to our class Constitution it might be related to a specific skill focus maybe just something we need to practice as a whole in the classroom you just never know sometimes we might have more than one and so we work really hard on establishing those goals on the first day of the week and continuing to reflect on those throughout the week morning means also a great time for students to have set individual goals for themselves whether it's just for the day maybe for a week or a long-term goal thinking about how are they're setting those goals sharing those goals how they're doing on those goals all of those are great ways to set up that positive classroom environment so what I'll typically do is I write the goal up on the board for the week and um we will talk about it each day we'll give some Kudos some shout outs who's do doing really well with that goal um and then if the students really are succeeding on that goal we'll actually pull some curl sticks or maybe I give them house chips um for our classroom management system so that they can earn some rewards and prizes when we do things as a whole class part of our morning meeting what I'll also do is up here on the board is I will write a classroom goal um whether I come up with it something that I think the students need to work on or whether the students share their ideas and thoughts um we kind of will discuss it together and then we have it up here on the board for the entire week so that we can continuously revisit and continue to work on that as much as we need to um until we feel like we have mastered it and even when I tell them you know even if it's not necessarily on the board doesn't mean that we stop working on it or stop stop doing it it just means that maybe we're doing a little bit different um focus for that week but again having that right there on the board um and referring back to that throughout the day the week the year um helps create that positive classroom environment again so speaking of positive reinforcement that is the key to a positive classroom environment if you are yelling and nagging them all the time guess what it's going to be like that all the time now I'm not saying that you're not having to redirect students or to give warnings or disciplines in different ways because that is real life we do have to do that as well but the more positive we can focus on the more positive our classroom environment so if you've ever heard of PBIS the positive behavioral intervention systems there's a ratio um when I learned about it years ago it was 4 to one was the school I was at we incorporated that some people use different ratios I think 4:1 is good that means four positives for every maybe one negative thing that you have to say um to a student or to the class okay and positive reinforcement doesn't have to necessarily be tangible things although we know kids love stuff um so it could be prais like it's like oh I feel good about myself I just got recognized for this positive thing I have a sticker store so when students go above and beyond or getting good praise or working really hard on something I say go pick out a sticker they love the stickers um anything you can put on on a water bottle nowadays that's what they love it could also maybe you have a treasure box and they get to pick something out of there I do the house system so they can go at house chips and work towards earning those points for their team there's lots of different ways that you can get that positive reinforcements and the more you do that the more natural it becomes we even do different things like recognition so when a student does a good job maybe we give them a round of applause a seal of approval and we go or or or or or there's just all kinds of ways that you can get positive reinforcement so think about what would work best for you and your students and how can you naturally incorporate those throughout your day in your classroom BR you to my little corner back here um like I said summer break everything's put away but I know where things are so one of the things that we do in our classroom to really help with that team building and camaraderie is the house system which I'm happy to do um more in depth about that in the future um but what I actually started doing um a couple of years ago is I found these jars at like homeown Goods or some place like that um and then I have these chips and so every time um a student gets a shout out or a compliment I have different colors of chips and they get to drop them into here and then we actually count and record points and then we do a big celebration at the end of every quarter at the end of the year um in terms of you know woohoo this this group did the best this house did the best um there's no prize I don't give any tangible prizes for this it's just a recognition celebration um bragging rights is what I do just again to help with that team camaraderie and terms of building that up with each other okay so in terms of if you do want to give a reward for a positive classroom reinforcements um this actually is designed for a calendar and I don't use a calendar like this anymore so I turned this into a sticker um sticker stop or sticker store whatever you want to call it um but I have this bucket like stickers are literally falling out of it and I just fill it up with stickers that the kids would be interested in they love being able to come over and pick out a sticker for recognition for something that they're doing well um sometimes I'll say you can have a add a house ship and pick out a sticker or sometimes I say you can do one or the other or just a sticker or just a house ship whatever um that may be but then this is part of getting to know them and what are their interests what types of stickers would they be most interested in working towards that actually helps as well with the investment in it all right there you have it first part of our classroom management series a positive classroom environment so let's recap we want to think about how are we going to decorate and organize our classroom to lead to that calming positive environment we want to think about how are we going to make our classroom warm and inclusive a very nice atmosphere for all students to feel included we want to think about how are the students going to take that ownership and responsibility for themselves and their classroom we want want to think about that positive reinforcement how are we going to use that to create that positive classroom environment have I said the word positive too much yet and then we want to think about how are we going to make sure all students feel welcome and respected within the class thank you for watching remember if you enjoyed this and you want to continue to follow and learn more um all aspects related to teaching make sure you click the Subscribe button and ring that Bell so you never miss out on the latest tips and tricks plus we want to be able to share our own classroom stories and things that work well for us in our classrooms every school every classroom is different so share in the comments below what works well for you and your students the more we share the more we can learn and grow together thank you for watching see you next time I love this journey for you he

Channel: April Pickett

Views: 1,395

Keywords: classroom management, classroom managment, classroom management strategies, classroom management elementary, classroom management tips, classroom managment strategies, classroom managment startegies, classroom management startegies, classroom managment elementary, classroom managment elementay, classroom management elementay, classroom managment tips

Id: cZy_u1bsN4A

Length: 29min 35sec (1775 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2024