A week or two ago, we had to submit our professional development plans for the year. As always, my mind is occupied by a certain kindergarten class and their vexing and stroke-inducing behavior. Now that we are in the second 9 weeks, I have this class twice a week--needless to say I am ever so excited. Putting sarcasm aside for a moment, I have to say that I genuinely like these kids on an individual (and occasionally small group) level. Together, however, they are...wild, to put it mildly.
Naturally, my PD Plan for the year revolves around the theme of classroom management. This class--which has brought me to the point of tears, which has made me laugh, which has both darkened and brightened my day--is my challenge.
For the last week or so, I have been scouring the internet looking for solutions other teachers of kindergartners have implement in their classrooms, trying to find ideas that I can use. Effective ones, hopefully. I also stumbled upon this site: Dr. Mac's Behavior Management Site. So far, I am liking the strategies I've been reading about. Therefore, I'm going to start implementing some and see how things pan out.
As you can probably guess, I will be focusing especially on that class. If I succeed with that class, I can succeed with any class. That's the feeling I get. Plus, I want very much to be able to do projects on the same level I do with the other classes.
For example, at the moment I am doing collage with my two 2-day/week classes. Or, I was. The first class, probably one of my best behaved groups of kindergartners, are doing an 18x24 collage of a pumpkin patch. They are all working in "teams", with each table forming a team. It's challenging for them because they have to share so much. They can't claim a pumpkin as their own. They can't claim the paper they tear as their own. The result is some squabbling and some whining, but the result, I think, will be a good one, even if the project itself isn't up to par. They need to experience such a large-scale group project.
Now the next class (and lets call them the Challengers for future reference) were going to do smaller collages, working in pairs. I thought better of myself when I actually had them. I know that they are not ready for dealing with this particular project. I had them do individual pumpkin drawings. They aren't doing torn paper collage because the mess would be incredible. I would see glue painted on people, on the table...the possibilities are endless (there's a reason they are banned from painting for the foreseeable future). However, I told them that we would try a team collage around Christmas--if their behavior improves. That's my goal.
This week, the strategy I'm going to employ is "catching them being good". Basically, much subtle (or more blatant for the little ones) positive reinforcement. Having read some of the experiences of other teachers utilizing this (even with what were considered "bad" classes), I feel like it might have some very positive effects. I'll keep up with it for a few weeks to see how it works.
When we return from Thanksgiving Break (everyone will be starting fresh on projects and such), I am also going to go with something I read on a message board and change my class stars system to see how it works. Currently, the class starts with four stars and loses stars for misbehavior. I'm going to try letting them earn stars instead, with up to 4 stars possible during class. Since our classes are forty minutes long, that means every 10 minutes I will evaluate class behavior and determine whether or not they have earned a star. I'm going to tell the kids that they can politely remind me if I forget to evaluate for now, but in the future, I may try a timer if I'm having problems remembering. It depends. I think this will mesh better with my star board system, too, wherein the kids earn a star for good behavior and get a prize every third star. Generally, the behavior of my kids at the 1-4 building is pretty good, but I'm hoping this will further improve some undesirable behaviors.
