Classroom Management

A lot of new teachers wonder what classroom management system to use and what is most effective. Honestly, it depends on your personality, I think. You’ve gotta find out what works for you and your kiddos. My first year, I changed management systems like it was going out of style. Once I found one that works, things were smooth sailing. Here is my collection of classroom management systems that I am using currently or have used in the past.

Current Systems: These are the things I am using right now in my classroom!

• Class Dojo
  • I LOVE Class Dojo. I love how it is an app on my phone that I can take wherever. The kiddos can earn and lose points no matter where they are. It works awesome during assemblies, hallway, and recess time! You can customize the positive and negative behaviors. I had positive points for all of our class rules. I also have corrections, negative points, for the class rules. They earn points for following and lose points for not following rules. I also have things with a zero point value as a warning. I like having a warning zero point value because parents can see these points in live time. The parents are able to see that their kiddo was having a hard time following voice levels today and I don’t need to take away points. Teacher Hack: Add a TEST student. Use this TEST student to take points away as a warning for the kiddos. When they hear that sound, it’s usually enough to correct behavior. :]
  • Class Dojo always has a place to share photos and videos. I like to show great things the kiddos are doing in class. I love sharing their projects that can’t necessarily go home on there for the parents to see. I think it’s a fun way to connect with parents!
  • There is also a chat feature. Parents can connect to the account and you can send them messages. They also have a quiet hours feature, parents can send messages but you won’t receive them until after quiet hours.
  • There are SO many other amazing features that are completely free! Check it out!
• Table Points
  • Table points are great motivators for the kiddos. Something about peer pressure makes these kiddos behave like crazy. They don’t want to be the one that ruins it for their team. I give out team points throughout the week and we reset on Friday’s. The team that wins gets to pick a prize from the prize bin.
• Scoreboard
  • Whole Brain Teaching has a scoreboard system. There are many different names for the main headers. In my class we use smiley faces and frownie faces. If the kids end with more smileys then frownies they get a star, ten stars means they get a class party! They choose their party or reward via class vote!
• Brag Tags
  • Brag Tags have been a life saver today. I’m so sad that I didn’t do this last year! I bought all of Angie Olson’s, Lucky Little Learners, brag tag sets. I prepped majority of them during the summer. The kids have a chain they get to wear on Fridays with all their tags, this is also when they put new tags on. They store their tags throughout the week in a pocket on their desk. The kids love earning the different tags. Some of them have picked a favorite tag that they REALLY want to win. When they find out it’s in my pocket, they try their best to earn it. It definitely encourages positive behavior!
• Green Tickets/ Tokens
  • My school implemented a new school wide behavior policy this year. The kids can earn tickets from any teacher. Once they earn 5, they get to go down to the office and exchange them for a token. The token gets them a prize from the token tower. They can also bypass the 5 tickets and just earn a token. This is for super awesome behavior! The 5 tickets they exchange also go into a drawing for prizes later!

Past Year Management: These are the things I used last year but haven’t had to pull out this year yet. They are in the bag ready to go if needed!

• Goal setting and Tally Marks
  • I wasn’t sure what to call this one. I learned about this in a college course. The kiddos set a class goal of something they want to improve. For example, they may want to improve on calling out. They decide how many times they will be allowed to call out during the week. They also pick a reward for reaching their goal and a consequence for not getting their goal. During the week, they get a tally mark anytime someone calls out. If they reach the goal at the end of the week, they get a prize, if they don’t the get their chosen consequence.
• Cash Money
  • I created a class economy system last year to teach the kiddos about how money works. They earned money for their class jobs and could get fines if they weren’t following class rules. I had store twice, I wasn’t very good at that aspect of class money. This is one of the reasons I chose not to use this system this year.

There are SO many different management options out there! Choose what works best for you and stick with it!