Submitted by Rhonda Schilling, Madison, Wisconsin

Idea posted March 24, 2005

Classroom management has always been my weakest point, but this year things are going MUCH smoother. I have a few things that have been working out well. Here is what I'm doing:

Daily Grade - Each student gets a daily grade based upon behavior and participation. I have yellow, red, and purple bracelets from Oriental Trading Co. (I used to give out green bracelets, as green = good, but I quickly ran out. Now I just keep a tally of those good "green" students.) If a student breaks a rule, they get a yellow bracelet. This is a warning to straighten up and fly right! If the student continues to break the rule or breaks another rule, they get a red bracelet. If a student is outstanding and goes beyond expectations, they get a purple bracelet. A student can never ask for a purple bracelet; I have to notice the behavior. Some examples of what will earn a student a purple bracelet are: helping out other students, helping to clean up a spot someone else missed, offering to do a solo, etc.

At the end of class the bracelets come back to me. I have a class roster in alphabetical order by first name. I put a dot in the appropriate color next to the child's name on my roster. Once the student gets to 15 green dots or 10 purple dots, they can pull a prize from the prize box. (There are no combinations of purple and green dots.)

Now, here's the trick: If a student gets a RED bracelet, they automatically get a blue note and have to stay in for lunch recess. I do this only ONCE A WEEK. So, if they get into trouble on Monday, at my school, they stay in on Thursday during lunch recess. I have copies of blue notes to hand out. One copy goes to the student the day they get into trouble, and there is a teacher copy that I hand out as a reminder the morning of the day they serve recess. At the beginning of the year, I handed out several blue notes, but it has dwindled down each week. The last couple of weeks I haven't passed out any!

Blue Notes - I keep a log of who got them and the reason (i.e., talking, lack of respect, not participating, etc., with the date and their classroom teacher. If a student gets one blue note, it's just between us. If they get two blue notes, I call home during the recess time and the student talks to their parent (either on machine or live). If I can't reach them, I call back later. If they get three blue notes, the parent has to come in for a conference with us. I haven't had one conference this year!

With serious offenders (i.e., hitting, swearing, etc.) our students are automatically written up on referral and sent to the R and R room. We have had fewer of these this year at our school.