Classroom Management Success!!

It is the fourth week of school and I am seeing awesome results of classroom management we have been working on for the past weeks!! I'm just so excited I have to share!

Every morning at 5'til the bell rings signaling that we have 5 minutes until school begins. At this first bell, I begin playing a 7 minute song (the End Credits to the movie "Up" - so cute!). This signals that students should now be in their seats working on their morning "Wake Up Your Brain" journal. When the song ends I always ask the pledge leaders to come up to the front to lead us in our morning pledges.

Well today the song was playing like normal and when it ended I was in the middle of answering a student's question. When I turned around to ask the pledge leaders to come up, they were already standing there (quietly!) looking at me, ready to go!!! WOW! I praised them up and down and just went on and on about how wonderfully they did their job. I was so happy to see such positive results of this simple classroom management technique. I was hoping we would get to this point by 2nd quarter, but they surprised me greatly!!

I also use songs to signal that we have one minute left before a transition and a song to signal that students need to line up. They love all these songs! The first week and a half of school I would show a powerpoint slide with each song's directions on it. But now I just hit a button and transitions happen smoothly. My students hear the "one minute song" (an short instrumental piece from "Finding Nemo") and they finish their work, clean up the activity, move back to their seats, and sit waiting for me to tell them what comes next. The "line up song" is also a short instrumental piece from "Finding Nemo". Students hear it and move quickly to the door. We are now working on getting into a 4S line as soon as we line up without having to be told to stand in a 4S line.

OH! I have also been using some Whole Brain Teaching techniques!!! I use Class Yes to get their attention. I tried out Mirror and Teach Okay with great success too! I will write another post about these later.

YAY classroom management! :-)