Noise Management

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Home : 2003 : September : 20

Noise Management
By Barb

I too have a noisy bunch of 26 second graders. I have started what I call STOP AND THINK. I made a traffic light with three large circles. Above it I have a STOP sign guy that says STOP AND THINK. Right now we are working
on listening and not chatting at inapprorpiate times. Each child has a clothespin with their student number on it. Everyone starts on green. After two warnings the child moves the clip to yellow. It stays there all week. Two more warnings and the clothespin moves to red. It stays there the rest of the week. On Friday I have FRIDAY FREE time. If you are on yellow you lose 5 minutes

of FRIDAY FREE time, on red you lose 10 minutes and if the clothespin is removed all together you get no FRIDAY FREE time. FRIDAY FREE time lasts 15 to 20 minutes. Acutually a lot of choices during FRIDAY FREE TIME are academically related. My students really like FRIDAY FREE time so missing out is not fun. My class still has a long way to go but I have noticed some improvement.

Also, a thought about centers. Maybe you could eliminate centers for now. Some groups can't handle the freedom that goes with centers. Let them work get other things in place first and gradually work back into center work.

Good luck!
Barb