I don’t know about you but classroom management is always an area I am adjusting and trying to improve. I always feel I can do better! In the last year, I came up with several ideas that helped my class so I wanted to share with you! Most of these ideas came from somewhere on Pinterest and blogs, but I am not sure where!
First, and I know I saw this idea on A Primary Kind of Life’s Instagram account, I created a bitmoji themed poster titled “When is okay to interrupt the teacher?” Here is it! You just need the bitmoji app and you can save them to your phone, transfer to the computer, print, glue and label! Amusing and gets the point across!
Check out this video on how to easily create your own poster!
I bought a light switch from 5 Below and attached it to the wall behind my reading table and would turn it on to remind other students that we are busy and can not be interrupted. It helped! if you click on the image below you can peek at them on Amazon, but also try local stores in case you can save a few $.
I saw this idea somewhere on Instagram too, and bought some ping pong balls on Amazon, labeled them and and old container using labels from my Cricut. I mostly used them to pick random students to help out or to choose flexible seating options for the next day randomly and fairly!
If you click on this ping pong ball image you can see them on Amazon, but you may be able to find them a tad cheaper at a store like Five Below or Walmart.
This idea came from my former coworker Brenna. She put out a second bin /basket for work called the “work that needs to be fixed” bin. If you find work with errors or that could be improved, you place it in the work to be fixed bin. Students should be checking this bin regularly and work on the edits, then put it back in a third bin, labeled “work that has been fixed”. This transformed my classroom and helped make students accountable for finishing work with good effort, and when improvements were needed, responsible for editing them.
Easy tip! You feel my pain about too short pencils, right? Keep a pencil cup handy, labeled “Broken Pencils” or something similar. Students should automatically place broken or dull pencils in here. Either you, an assistant, or student helper can take 5 minutes a day and sharpen them up. I just don’t let students sharpen their own pencils (we use community supplies by the way, which is why this works)!
Finally you may want to try Class Dojo! It is a free and fun app which helps you reinforce positive behaviors! I also have a freebie for you, which includes 35 ways that you can give out Dojo points for positive behavior! Give it a try and let me know how it goes! Click here or on the image below to download it.
