Classroom management

I recently took over the preschool class at my child care center. It was a great step up for me but the class was out of control and had no idea how to listen to a teacher let alone do what I asked of them. I created a behavior chart and we as a class came up with rules we all had to follow. During our rule discussion I asked "what kind of rules do you think we should have?". One boy responded "happy rules!" so our class rules are happy ones that are phrased in positive, what you can do , ways instead of negative no, don't, can't ways. The combination of the behavior chart and the easy to read or understand rules has turn my class of 9 physical boys and one sweet girl around in two short weeks.

Happy class rules: I found a class rule poster on pinterest that had simple drawing of faces and feet and other things to remind the kids visually what rules to follow. So I sat down with the kids and asked them what rules were important to them. The only one I helped them with was the sharing URL. The rest they said to me. I turned them into positive phrases because who really like being told what they can not do. I know I don't. I have found that the more often that you remind a child of what they can do instead of what they are doing, the more likely they are to do the actions we want them too.

After I completed the rule poster I showed it to the kids and talked about what each rule was and the picture that goes with it. So now when someone has a hard time remembering what rule they should be following I just tell them the rules number and even though they can not read yet, they can tell me what the rule is.

Behavior chart: I also found this type of chart on pinterest but for kindergarten ages or older. The ones I saw just had words on it. I wanted to add faces do the kids had a visual picture of how their actions effect their day. It has been challenging to monitor exactly when someone needs to move up or down because at the preschool age they are so active and still figuring out how rules work. But they get really excited when they move up and so heart broken when they have to move down. During our rule discussion we also talked about why we move down and what happens when we get to red.