Rockin' Behavior and an Organization Tip

I feel like this should be a grand unveiling!  I have been working really hard on my Rock Star behavior clip chart and I'm finally ready to blog about it and post it!  This is really my first "big" item that I've made myself for my classroom and I'm excited to share it with you!

 

If you haven't considered using a clip chart for behavior in your classroom, you really should think about it this summer!  They are fabulous!  I love that I can not only stop inappropriate behavior, but that I can also reward those that are doing the right thing.  Most times, rewarding the ones making the right choices is much more effective at stopping the wrong behavior!  True?! 

 

I've included charts to track students' behavior for each month, notes for home when someone moves to the bottom of the chart and mini charts that can be laminated and sent home.  I'm thinking about putting magnets on the back of them so that parents can stick them on the fridge and always have a reference when their child talks about the behavior chart.   I know from this past school year, that my students talk about the clip chart at home ALL. THE. TIME.  I even had one parent tell me that her child thought the clip chart was THE LAW!  Ha!  I love it! One of my favorite parts of this system is the "Rock Star Hall of Fame!" I've included a poster to hang in the room so you can display clips that have been moved to the top of the chart.  In my classroom, you get a sticky gem each time you get to the top.  Earn 5 gems and that clip gets moved to the Hall of Fame!  They loved this! I must say that I had very few major behavior problems last year and I attribute much of that to using this system for behavior!

 

I've seen many posts about teachers incorporating tickets into this system that can be traded for prizes.  I'm really thinking about that!  I love the idea, but not sure I'm ready to manage it! (Or spend all the moo-lah on the prizes!)

 

You can head over HERE to get this ROCK STAR BEHAVIOR CLIP CHART!  And if you're interested, I'll email it to the first two people to leave a comment and tell me you'd like to use it next year!

 

I'm also linking up with Primary Possibilities today for Wisdom Wednesdays.  I love this idea because, let's face it--it's hard to come up with something educational to blog about in the summer sometimes.  It's much for fun to talk about swimming and vacations and what we are reading and what we are eating and how late we are sleeping . . .

 

 

Now, we have a specific topic to blog about every Wednesday.  First up--ORGANIZATION!

 

Now I don't really have anything earth shattering to post about.  I'm not the best at organization.  Here's my tip.  My tables happen to be primary colors.  I have a red, blue, green, and yellow table.  Now I don't totally LOVE the primary colors with my rock star neons that I like to use, but it works.  I also have one of these from Really Good Stuff.

 

 

Each student has a folder that goes back and forth every day.  Each morning, they put their folder in the bin that is the same color as the table they sit at.  It just makes it easy for me to quickly see how hasn't turned their folder in and they don't have to dig through everyone's folders to find theirs at the end of the day.

 

I also color code my math centers according to the table colors.  Everything for each center goes in a colored tub that matches the table.  Most of them look like this. Well, not exactly this, but you get the idea.

 

Some of my math games are stored in something like this.

 

 

If they are already in tubs like this, I don't switch them into the colored tubs.  I just put a colored piece of paper inside the tub so the kids know which table to put the activity.  I use my SMARTboard to rotate kids through math centers each week.  Each activity goes in a colored rectangle.  That way, the kids just look at the SMARTboard and know which table to go to.  They can also very easily get the activities set up themselves since they are color coded. 

 

In this example, the Penny Nickel Exchange game was in a green tub and was at the green table.  Get it?!  Then each day, I just pulled this file up on the SMARTboard, switched the groups to the next center and we were ready to start math centers!

 

So I always toy with covering my tables with contact paper to make them "cuter," but in the end the ease of being able to organize by color always wins out!  I hope this maybe gives you some ideas!

 

Oh, and one more thing--I hope you stuck it out this long!  Today I reached 100 FOLLOWERS!!  I have a fabulous giveaway in the works and you're not going to want to miss it!  I'm hoping to have it ready to go tomorrow so stay tuned!  Now I'm off to sit poolside with my laptop and get the giveaway together while my kiddos swim!