A Day in the Life: Classroom Management

Classroom Management is something you cannot live without in! From the time I was in Elementary School I feel like times have changed. As a teacher I feel I have to be extremely careful not to get on a parent's bad side. I am so blessed to be at a school where the parents and teachers work together. The parents know that they can trust what the teacher has to say about their child's work. Unfortunately, I know that's not always the case. I have also been blessed by students who (in most cases) behave extremely well & there are rarely any instances where students need to be sent out of my classroom [knock on wood]. Here are a few ways I've been managing in the classroom. Some work better than others and honestly, its all about your students and how they take to them.

Cute classroom

First thing you absolutely need to have is your classroom rules posted! You should go over these rules the first day you have students in your room, but always leave the rules up on the wall. My rules are pretty simple and the other art teacher in my building has the same five rules, so that when students have a different art teacher the next year, they shouldn't be surprised by new rules.

Some Methods:

I started the "Artist of the Day" pretty much at the beginning of the year. Each student should receive an artist of the day prize by the end of the year. Basically students get selected at the end of their class period for staying on task, working hard, showing a new technique, etc. Inside of my prize box is basically the dollar store. I stay away from candy - you never know with all the allergies these days. Pencils, mini play-dough, temporary tattoos, stickers, bookmarks, erasers, pencil sharpeners. Goodies.

One of the other first methods I tried was to create a pocket chart in which every class had a specific pocket. Inside of those pockets were a yellow "so-so" face, and red frowning face and a green "super" smiley. Each class period my goal was to give them a particular card depending on their behavior. The first class to get to five green smiley's in a row would get the silver paintbrush. For the older grades who didn't really buy the "silver paintbrush" idea I was going to give them free art time. While excellent in theory - it just didn't work out for me. I could never remember to change the smiley at the end of the period because it's sometimes chaos when we are cleaning up. I thought there had to be a better way.

This other method I am attempting to get started has a daily reward. I made three separate letters, that when placed together spell "ART". I just got them laminated and placed magnetic tape on the back. You can also just write the letters on the board and erase them as necessary. Each time the class is misbehaving, just too loud, talking to others instead of listening to directions, etc. I automatically take a letter down. If, at the end of the class period, the class has ART then they receive a golden paintbrush. If students have a RT at the end of class the get a silver paintbrush & if they have just a T then they do not receive any paintbrush. From other teachers who have tried this method, the only problem is getting the paintbrushes back. The teacher should return in to your mailbox at the  end of the day (or else I would have to buy 42 paintbrushes and paint half silver and half gold)! I think I may give that "special" job to one of the kids in the class. They love getting special jobs and usually do a pretty good job!

The last method (which I had to resort to) is about table points. I have a 4th grade class of 33 but I only have 32 seats at the four tables. I ended up placing at child at "Paradise Island" (I can show you a picture of the sign I made for that later). The first few weeks with this class was just insane. We took an eternity forever to get things done just because they were always talking. Anyway, I created four different sheets based on their table colors. Tables could earn a point each class by focusing on work instead of socializing. In my classroom, more than one table can earn a point each class. It's completely up to you if you want to allow that or if you only want to give one point per class. My Paradise Island goer got to select the table they wanted to be included with. Here are my signs:

Do you have any classroom management strategies that work especially well for you? Have you tried strategies similar to the ones I have been using? I'd love to know!