I know, I know, I know . .

It is all that I've talked about lately. But my classroom overhaul is all I can think about. The bulletin boards are all figured out and I can only only hope that then that classroom procedures are finalized . Throughout my undergrad professors would ask us to create classroom procedures to run the classroom but none of us had spent too much time in a classroom let alone enough to be able to understand and create all those inner workings. So as part of an under taking in this overhaul I decided to put all my classroom procedures in writing. Well maybe not ALL but most. This simple project turned into a 40 page paper, oops. I found it necessary to put all of these workings onto paper because there are four other adults in my classroom with me and we all need to be on the same page on how everything works. My paraprofessionals are amazing and my classroom would be a zoo without their help. We just had a few minor communication gaps last year that only confused the students. Therefore the creation of this 40 pages of classroom procedures was created.

I've also changed my behavior plan and after lots and lots of thoughts I've decided to try punch cards:

These cards were created with help from my friends at Vistapint from business cards. After all the :) are punched with a hole punch the students can turn these cards in for a prize. The students are able to earn getting their card punched by staying on task when everyone else is off task, lending an extra hand to staff or a student, volunteering for a job request, etc. As I'm not great with trinkets and am cheep, I wanted to find prizes that were at no cost to me, but age appropriate for my older students. These prizes include:

§  Candy or Gum

§  Decorative Pencil and Eraser

§  Be the first one in the lunch line

§  Use teachers chair for a day

§  5 minutes of extra computer time

§  Listen to music while working for one day

§  Choose what movie to watch on designated movie day

§  Get out of school job

§  Get out of class job

§  Choose a book for the teacher to read aloud during circle

§  Print something from the computer

§  Trip to the prize box

As you can see, most of these items are free but some cost a little bit of money. I also have included some long term goals with the punch cards giving out larger prizes after a student turns in 10 cards and even larger prizes and lots of recognition when a student reaches 20 cards.

I'm very excited to try this new plan in hopes that is minimizes behaviors. My biggest problem that I'm having with this is that I keep wanting to say that the students will get "punches" for good behavior. While using this plan I will have to choose words carefully while describing.