behavior

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Home : 2003 : September : 1

behavior
By Sandy

Kathy, this is what works for me. I have a poster of a stoplight in the front of my class. Every child has a clothespin with his/her name on it. (they are mini-clothespins from Walmart) They start on green. I will give
them 1 verbal warning before moving the clip to the yellow light. If they get put on yellow it is just a verbal warning, but a note goes home to the parents with the yellow light circled along with a reason why. The next infraction is getting moved to the red light. If a child ends up on the red light, he/she gets the note home with the red light circled along with the reason why, and

he/she also misses the "free choice" time at the end of the day. (Which is only like 10 minutes long). The notes I send home have to be signed and returned to me. I keep them in the child's file and I use them to determine a behavior grade. I try to phrase everything positivly...praising the children that stay on green all day long and even praising the yellow light. I do talk with the children that ended on the red light. I encourage them to try to stay on green all day long the next day, and I tell them that everyone has bad days and tomorrw will be better. Most days I have only a couple on yellow and the red light is hardly ever used. If we are having a very bad day, and they cannot hear me through all of their talking I turn out the lights. Then I ask that everyone put down their head because we all need to calm down for a little while. This has worked well for me. Last year was my first year teaching and I did not start out with this behavior plan. I had to change it a couple months into the year because the behavior plan that I had was not working for some students. I have found that they ALL love the free choice time, they just have to learn how to behave in order to EARN the time. Good luck!