Diggin' into Classroom Management

I love that summer is a time to rejuvenate and reflect.  One of the areas that I'm constantly rethinking is classroom management, so when I saw this linky from Laura at Where the Magic Happens, I knew I needed to sit down and reflect on my plans for this year.

Classroom Management

Having just finished my 10th year of teaching, I realize that classroom management is multi-layered.  It's taken some time to get here, but I feel comfortable in the strategies and approaches I use.

Individual:

My school uses clip charts school wide.  I remade mine to match my sports theme.  

 
 
 
 
 

I like the clip chart because it allows me to focus on positive as well as negative behavior.  As students make good choices, they can clip up.  At the end of the day, I give out (or take away) Class Dojo points based on how they clipped during the day.  My students really respond well to Class Dojo.  I've blogged about it previously HERE.  Students work hard to earn points for different rewards.  I use scratchers, reward coupons, and reward tags as rewards.  I think my students love reward tags the most.  Here are some pictures of them:

Team

In addition to the individual student behavior, I also have my students sitting in groups and use teams to help out with the behavior expectations.  I do not have any specific rewards for the teams, but do allow them to be first when I see them doing well.  I plan to change this up, but I'll talk about that later.

Whole Class

The final layer of my management plan is whole class.  I use brownie points when my class receives a compliment from someone else.  When the brownie tray is filled up we have a little treat as a class.

Next year I want to add jewels to my clip chart.  I saw this on Pinterest:

and linked it back to First Grade Glitter and Giggles.  I love the idea of having a Hall of Fame to retire clips to and that fits perfectly with my sports theme.  The idea behind this is that any time a student reaches the top of the chart, they earn a jewel.  After they earn 5 jewels, they get to retire their clip to the Hall of Fame and start over.  I will probably give them a decorative clip (either spray painted or with Washi tape) for their new clip as an added incentive.  I saw that some people give jewels every time they clip up, but since I'll be giving out Dojo points for each clip up, I decided against that.

Another thing that I would like to add is a better way to reward my teams.  I was stalking reading Jamie's post (Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher) on classroom management and knew instantly I needed to have these Team of the Week placemats:

Click on the picture to go to Jamie's post.  Click HERE to pick up her team of the week freebie!

You can check out my reward tags by clicking on the image below.  I plan to add to these this summer because there are so many uses for them.

I'd love to hear about your management plan.  Let me know what you use and be sure to check out the linky party to get some ideas and resources!