Classroom Management Strategies

I work at an elementary school right now and the kindergarten teacher uses a classroom management strategy very similar to Brother Beattie’s example. Each kid has a popsicle stick with their name on it. The popsicle sticks start out in a green pouch with a smiley face on it, if the child misbehaves they have to move their stick to a yellow pouch, and if they misbehave again they have to move their stick to a red pouch with a sad face on it. Along the way they got lots of warnings though before they have to move their sticks. One pitfall is that it might be hard to always be consistent and kids probably pick up on that. (They know they have lots of warnings before they might actually have to move their stick.) You could avoid this by trying to consistent every time, or by having clear rules about what constitutes a move from green to yellow and from yellow to red. I’m not sure if this is a classroom management strategy or not, but the kids also have to stay inside during recess if they don’t finish their work on time. So potentially losing recess is used to motivate the kids to get their work done quickly, that way they don’t have to stay inside to finish. I’ve noticed that this is effective – the kids really don’t want to miss their recess so they usually try to get their work done on time. However, they’re only kindergarteners and they only get one 15-minute recess a day, so missing that might actually make it harder to get their work done. Sometimes maybe they need a break. To avoid the pitfalls of this strategy, you may just have to think of another idea altogether of how to motivate the kids to get their work done quickly.