Ch. 5 Clasroom Management

Classroom management is one of the most important elements in the classroom.  Without it nothing else productive is going to happen.  I think it's important to have structure in a classroom.  I don't feel that I am a rigid in my structure, but I do feel that structure is necessary.  Organized chaos has its place in certain lessons and activities, but it is not a way I want my classroom to run on a daily basis.

At the beginning of each year my class and I write an Essential Agreement together.  We come up with things that we feel are important to making our classroom and our day at school productive and a pleasant place to be.  Most of the things the students come up with are things teachers would most definitely agree with but by coming up with it themselves the students feel an ownership to the agreements.  We do a thumbs up to each one showing that we all agree. It is much nicer and means more to the students to be able to say to the, "Is that part of our agreements?" when I see someone not following one rather than to say, "That's not following our classroom rules."  I think students respect the agreements when they have come up with them, agreed on them and we have discussed why each is important.

We practice our classroom procedures a lot in the first few weeks of school I realize that my procedures will be different from the ones they had just two months before in their previous grade.  My classroom procedures are designed to keep moving around the room to a minimum especially during my small group time.  For example, I sharpen the students pencils ever afteroon and then they are allowed to have small individual shapeners at their desk.  I have book baskets for each group of students.  When they are finished they may read a library book or a book from the basket.  For students who are easily distracted these two procedures keep things running smoothly.  I also have cubbies for those who take a little extra time with their work and are not finished when I take an assingment up.  They know when they need extra time they are still responsible to get it turned in and where it goes.  We take two restroom breaks a day when everyone must go.  After that I use my descretion on who goes and when.  It's not just go whenever you want to.  I think even though the students don't always like the procedures it does keep things running smoothly.

I use a card system as many teachers do, but mine uses letters instead of colors.  The letters spell the word THINK because I tell them we should always think about our behavior.  T is for excess talking, H is for incomplete homework, I is for inappropriate behavior, N is for not following directions and K is for (not) Keeping on task.  The consequences for cards being pulled is the same as many other classrooms.  One card is five minutes off recess two is the entire recess and three is a phone call home.  A sheet is filled out and put in the Friday folders for parents to see the cards pulled for the week and to sign and return.

My reward system is very simple compared to many in this chapter.  I have a treat box that I use each Friday for those who have not pulled cards and a smaller one with candy for children who are caught "doing the right thing" or maybe for an assignment where extra effort was put in.  I think about doing class behavior parties each year, but can't seem to figure out where to give up the class time to do that.  I do sometimes also give a few minutes of extra recesss or no homework for rewards.  I liked some of the ideas in this chapter, but some like the token economy seemed to be a lot to keep up with.

Parent communication is through Friday folders with graded work and the citizenship sheet, newsletters, midterm grades, e-mails, phone calls and conferences as needed.  Parent communication is so important.  I wish all parents realized what an important role they play in their child's education.