Behavior Management

Natalie and Rachelle at What The Teacher Wants are hosting a behavior management linky.  I am so excited to link up because What the Teacher Wants was the first blog I started reading.  It is what introduced me to the wonderful world of teacher blogging! 

Last year, I felt like behavior management was my weakest link.

This year, I've put lots in place to make sure that doesn't happen again!

First, foremost, and number one is my clip chart:

Do you see the black clips?  Those two kiddos have already gotten to  Excellent Effort six times, so they got to take their old clip (now covered in six stickers) home and now have a black clip.  Next time, it will be a blue clip!  They are working toward the elusive glitter clip.  I know I got the colored clip idea from someone, but I'm not sure who. Let me know if it was you!

I didn't do a clip chart last year because I thought 4th graders were too old for it.  WRONG!  They love it, and it makes such a great impact.  The third day of school was first time I had a kiddo clip down.  Later that day, I told him he could clip up.  "Even though I clipped down before?" he asked.  "Yes!  You are making better choices now.  You're showing me you're ready to learn," I responded.  He happily clipped up and we had quite a while before our next issue (which is quite a feat with this kiddo).

I also have a class raffle, so sometimes I hand out raffle tickets.  I like to do this when kiddos are going above and beyond in some way, when a kiddo is already on Excellent Effort, but deserves another clip up, and with my math class (a partially different group of kiddos, so I don't have clips for everyone).  We pull raffle tickets any day that we are ready to go home before the bell rings.  It's a great way to make our afternoon routine go smoothly.

I am also going to start a class paper chain, but I haven't yet.  We don't seem to need it yet.  The paper chain will start at the ceiling and they will get a link when the whole class deserves a reward.  When it reaches the floor, we'll have a little celebration.

What do you use for behavior management?  Link up with Natalie and Rachelle to share!