Classroom Management Linky Party!

Kelley Randall over at Mrs. Randall's Learning Library is having a linky party! Go link up!! ;)

Classroom management is something that has really been challenged in my classroom this year! It's really exciting to be able to go and read what others are doing in their classroom as I prepare for next year. :) **I'll be adding pictures later tonight when I get home - my iPhone plug isn't here!!** When my kids arrive at school, I have an area close to the door that has baskets for their lunches, and they clip their lunch. This is also a really fast way for me to tell who's here and who's not! (As long as they do their jobs...)

I've used a combination of things this year for behavior- the most commonly used one is the clip chart. Previously I always used some variation of the card system, but I LOVED the clip chart and so did my kids. If you've never heard of this, it's pretty simple. The kids all start in the middle on green - they can move up or down depending on the choices they make. The truly fabulous part about this thing is that they're not STUCK wherever they move! If they make a bad choice and move down to yellow, they can still end the day on blue, purple, or even pink!
For a little while, I used "Behavior BINGO"... but because it was more of a *whole class* classroom management tool rather than focusing on groups/individuals... it took waaaay too long for my kids to get a BINGO. I had a real toughie until December that really uprooted our class and a few others that liked to instigate. While I've found this incredibly useful in the past, it wasn't so much with this class!! *Sorry about the glare!*
We use table points for a fun competition (and to encourage teamwork!) as a classroom management tool. Usually, it only takes one team getting bragged on and getting points for the rest of the class to shape up! I'd add a picture, but I had to erase them for TAKS. I'll add one Monday when we start anew!

Due to some extreme behaviors in my room (I've got SUCH an interesting group this year...) I'm adding in a classroom economy to survive the last six weeks. This is also a trial run to see if this something I feel would be successful for the entire school year. :) I'm taking some from Beth Newingham, and adding in a few things I found through Pro-Teacher or my BFF Google (I wish I could remember all the places I pulled from so I could give everyone credit!!). My kids have little Debit/Credit books that they will keep at their desks and I'll tally what they earned/lost. {I have sheets I'll post that has my salaries, expense, earnings, and fines on it later in this post.}

Each week (like I said, I'm only doing this for the remainder of the year) my kids will earn their paychecks and will have an opportunity to shop the "Classroom Store". The majority of this stuff will be privileges, with a few odds and ends from Oriental Trading, Dollar Tree, and Target $ Spot all mixed in together. Kids are so easy to please sometimes. ;) I'm hoping this really pushes my kids to hold themselves to a higher standard for the rest of the school year when it's the hardest to stay focused - we are all ready for summer!! Right?! If this is as successful as it's started out being, I'm totally using this next year.

Click below on the pictures and it *should* {cross your fingers, it's the first time I've done all this mess!} take you to Google docs where you download the forms to use if you'd like to!! Thanks to Ladybug Teacher Files for the tutorials!! :)