Classroom Magic

Thursday was  International Blog-Hopping Day and TBA was hosting a link up of several Linky Parties!  I am a few days behind, but thought I would link up and share too.

 

is hosting

It’s a terrible picture of my behavior system, but my cell phone does not take great photos and everything is packed up for the move.  I went back to my old ring and clip system about mid-year last year and think I will continue it with my third graders.  I was using the clip chart that has been all over blog world.  It just wasn’t working for me.  Only a few kids were getting to the top, I was forgetting to use it, and the kids that really needed to have consequences were sometimes able to get out of it by doing something to get their clip out of the hot zone.  I just really needed to tighten down on some of the behaviors.

Long story short, this system really works for me. It uses a pocket chart with several pockets per row.  I think is was for attendance.  We have a system widely used through my building call  ”Shoot for a Rainbow.”  Some use the clip style system.  I use cards in the order of a rainbow on a ring.  The last card is a rainbow.  The kids switch their cards as a reward.  The cards do not go back to red every day.  The kids keep flipping until they get to the rainbow at the end. when that can claim a reward.

Different teachers use the rewards in a ton of different ways.  I put a card in the back of the pocket with the students’ number and, when they reach the rainbow, they put their name card in the pockets at the top with rewards.  They are easy, but effective rewards.  I usually pick 3 or 4 rewards for a month or so.  I had:

• read to the class
• share
• line ender
• switch seats
• bonus VIP day
• share a writing piece with the class

They cost nothing and result in the minimum of interruption.

The clips are the  reminder/consequence system and are on the front of each pocket.  It aligns with 1, 2, 3, Magic, which is another system popular in my school.  The clips all begin on green.  The yellow is a reminder, the orange is a warning with 5 minutes of recess owed, and the red is 10 minutes of recess owed and a parent phone call.  This worked wonders!  The clip goes back to green each morning.

I guess I have learned once again that I should K.I.S.S. (keep it simple silly).  I changed a lot of things last year because I loved how someone else did it and realized I should stick to what works rather than try to use something that doesn’t work for me.  It was taking too much time and energy to change my thinking and I wasn’t consistent enough.

I am planning to use this system in my third grade classroom as well.  I think it translates well for all elementary grade levels and give a good picture of each students behavior over time and give the teacher the ability to collect data if needed.