Behavior Management Linky

Happy Sunday, and Father's Day to everyone!  I'm linking up again this week with Where the Magic Happens to talk about this week's topic: Behavior Management.  

...work on behavior management from the office perspective.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I handle a lot of discipline in my role as an Assistant Principal.  At times, I feel like it is a great opportunity to help guide students in making more positive choices.  Then there are those days when I see the same kid two or three times in one day, and I don't feel like I'm making an impact.

Regardless of the day, I've always had some go-to items in a folder for me to use.  Two of these things are a Think Sheet and blank paper for an apology letter.

However, many students don't know how to write an apology, and my frustration grows deeper when I go to check on a 4th graders letter to his/her teacher or classmate and see one sentence that states, "I'm sorry."Therefore, this year, I'm going to use this as another opportunity for learning, and high expectations, and I have created some templates for apology letters to use.  I wrote some mock apology letters and have the guidelines included so that my older students can be independent in this task.  There are also times when I am in a meeting and my secretary checks them and copies them for me to reference later.  This will give her something to reference when checking the letters.  Whether I like it or not, some students, even when in the office, don't put forth their best effort. 

I would also like to be better about communicating the steps I have taken with students with their teachers.  I want to make copies of these forms and share whether or not I contacted home more consistently.  

The forms I have used in the past are bland and boring.  The apology letters were just written on blank notebook paper (for all grade levels!).  So, I've put together some of these resources in a bit more user friendly format with this new pack.  I have it on sale for just $1.50 right now!  Hop on over to grab a copy and make your own folder for your classroom.  

            

Don't forget to check out the linky with LOADS of other behavior management posts and products!

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend.  We're off to celebrate the great dad's we have in our life! Gotta run!

Brain Breaks to a New Level with GoNoodle!

Ever had one of those days when it's too cold to go outside, it's been overcast and snowing for days, and your students are going crazy?  Oh wait, that has been almost all winter for a lot of us here in Indiana!  Well, a great new website and resource is now here to help ease your Winter Blues and those mid-year burn out days.

Have you heard of GoNoodle!?  It is an awesome website with brain breaks and an interactive avatar that students get to build upon and follow.  What I love most about these brain breaks is that they are categorized by your intent of the break.  Are you wanting to energize your class?  Focus them?  or Calm them?  GoNoodle lets you channel your students' energy based on the breaks you select.  I love that it is more intentional than the brain breaks you might find on Pinterest.  They each have a focus, and students have some choice.

Once you sign up and log in, you get to personalize your experience for your classroom.  Do you have several different classes?  They'll let you create more than one classroom.  After that, you choose a "Champ" (digital mascot or avatar) to reward students for their work.

Here are some of the Champs to choose from.  To get students on board, they would obviously make the choice of the Champ they'd want to start with, but they are all super creative and fun!

After this quick set up, you're off to the races to pick your brain break and start stretching, exercising in place, or doing breathing activities.  The reward?  Student engagement!!   

So head to the website and get started.  If you already use it in your classroom, I'd love to hear what your students think about it. 

Also...a big announcement!  A bunch of bloggers will be having a Spring Cleaning Sale very, VERY soon!  Check back for the details! 

Well, today instead of running, I walked around the mall with my mom and the baby for a long time!  I'm going to count that as my exercise.  Oh yea, and Gap was having a 40% off sale - never a bad thing!

Ten Pin Linky: Classroom Management!

I must say that as an Assistant Principal behavior can be a big part of my day.  However, I am EXTREMELY lucky that my teachers have classroom management high on their priority list, and thus are able to teach more effectively, and less of my day is spent removing students!

Ashley over at Just Reed! is continuing with her Ten Pin Linky, but this time it's all about Classroom Management.  What a great time to rethink how you might want to run your class.  Save this post for December too, when you're needing something new, novel, and necessary for the 2nd half of the year!

As a little bit of background, I think your most highly effective teachers typically have the least amount of behavior issues.  The key?  Student engagement!  The best classroom management tool is to design highly engaging lessons and tasks.  Therefore, most of my pins are about rewarding students or keeping students involved in lessons. I also have some that are specific to some student needs I'll have in my building this year.  Just like your core instruction doesn't always hit 100% of students, neither does you core behavior plan, so it's important to have some tools in your belt for those students!

So join me on my Ten Pin adventure!  Here are my top 10 classroom management pins!

1. My first one is the Decide Now! app. What I love is that it can be personalized for anything!  Enter different class rewards on here and students can either earn a spin at the wheel or even enter summer activities for your own kids to choose from! 

2. Class Dojo App - Okay I think this one is fairly well-known at this point, but what I love is that it easily sends info and data on a student to the parents (and administrators!).  We had a few students with high behavior needs and this was extremely helpful in knowing how their days were going.  I could touch base at lunch of in the hallway and reward or remind based on these updates!   

3. Pick Me! App - Remember how I talked about engagement?  Well cold calling is something I look for when I observe in a classroom because it keeps all students engaged and paying attention.  The Pick Me! app is great because it will randomly pick a student, you then ask them the question, and can record whether they knew the answer!  What a great formative assessment.  You could also use this when looking at students work and walking around the room.  

4. Warm Fuzzies - I added warm fuzzies during my last year of teaching due to Seusstastics great blog. I loved the system and that I could reward individual students rather than a class reward.

  5. Calm Down Jar - I'm picturing this in my office to help some of my students calm down.  Once they get to my office they are usually pretty worked up and it takes a while to get them to the place where we can actually talk through things.  Obviously not all students would need this, but some will benefit!

                                                

6. You Rock Because... - I like this sign because, again, it focuses on the positive.  A lot of times we start with a praise and end with something to fix (I really like the way you are using your time today, but your handwriting could be neater.).  With this sign it's ONLY praise!  What are your thoughts on having one of these outside of my office for staff member praise too?

7. Angry Birds - Well, we have an adorable 1st grader (soon to be 2nd grader) who absolutely loves Angry Birds.  We've used behavior charts where he earns birds, loses birds, etc. but I liked that he could relate to the birds and their actions.  Making behavior relatable is often challenging...this could work!

8. Pat on the Back - And again, a reward!  I loved the visual of this and how others in the building would be able to share in their success.  It's not distracting to them during the day, yet others will want to work toward a great pat on the back too!

9. 1, 2, 3 Fingers - This seems so simple that I'm mad I didn't come up with it, but great classroom procedures help with management.  In this way, all I have to do is see one finger and grab the pencil as I'm talking or get it while they are working.  With the tissue or bathroom, I can just give them a nod and they'd know.  Off task questions or comments wouldn't start when addressing these daily (maybe by the minute!) requests!

10. GROUPS Poster - These are free on TPT (which I LOVE!) and with PBL and collaborative work on the rise in my building, learning how to work in groups is crucial.  This will help them in their group endeavors.  I love the mini-posters as individual reminders too!

Whew!  Well, if you've made it to the end then Bless You!  Also, I know many of you are starting to get on the BlogLovin' train, so I've added a button to the top of my blog so that you can easily follow, or you can click the link below!

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Alrighty, gotta run!  Have a great hump day!