What's your Classroom Management Profile?

I am taking a course on Classroom Management through the WV elearns site to renew my certificate. As I am going through the lessons I keep thinking about how great the resources are that they are sharing with us.  I want to share those resources with you as well.  The first one is a link to a online classroom management profile.   There are four types of managers: authoritarian, authoritative, laissez-faire, and indifferent.   I am a authoritative manager.  What type are you? After you take the quiz, comment below with your classroom management profile.  Look for more classroom management ideas and resources to come.

Classroom Management Profile

Easy organization ideas

My students were always losing their morning work and also losing unfinished work inside their desks. A friend if mine suggested I put a folder on the front of the desk of one of my special needs students. I realized all my students would benefit from this idea. I found file folders that are more like pockets. I let the kids decorate them and then I taped it to the front of each desk. Now their names are visible from the front and they have a place to store morning Noel and unfinished work. You have to watch the kids though. They'll put everything in them including books if you aren't diligent and insistent on what's allowed and not allowed in the pockets.

Classroom Management: Tally Charts for the desk

I don't know about you all but my kids have lost a little bit of their memories.  They have forgotten the rules of the classroom.  I have to admit that I too have lost my memory as well.  I have forgotten to reinforce the rules as I know I should.  Positive reinforcement had gone right out the door after Christmas.  It was all business, but I absolutely know that if the kids are not following the rules less time is getting spent on teaching and more time is spent on disciplining.  At the beginning of the year, I placed a laminated small square paper on each desk.  I call the paper their tally chart.  When students are following the rules, I tell them to give themselves a tally.  When students earn 5 tallies, they are rewarded by moving up on my behavior chart.  If a student doesn't follow the rules, they lose a tally.  If that means they no longer have 5 tallies, they move their clip back down the chart.  I used to believe in not taking away from students like this, but it has worked so far.  Below is a picture of my chart . 

What's great about the tally charts is that they are colored coded and they have different symbols on them.  I use them to call students to the door to line up or for small groups.  I call all the reds, the lassos, etc. 

Western Theme

As per a request of a fellow teacher on Teachers Notebook, I created a Western theme for SOAR.  I really like it and actually am thinking I will use it this year instead of the hot air balloons.  After I made it, Baylei (my daughter) said she loved it and that I should use it. So....I am! Click the pictures below if you would like to see it in my Teachers Notebook store. The set includes: 2 SOAR posters, positive behavior reinforcement cards, and nameplates.

SOAR Positive Reinforcement Cards

I saw a post on Pinterest (of course) about making cards for your students as positive reinforcement.  I thought that I would try it for SOAR.  Let me know what you think of them.  I made a set for each of the letters for SOAR.  The cards can be passed out as students are "caught SOARing".  The cards can then be used as part of a Positive Behavior Support System or just for an intrinsic reward.
Visit my Teachers Notebook shop to download.

SOAR

One thing I've learned in my teaching career is that students need taught what is expected of them.  They need to know what it means to be a good citizen and what a good citizen looks like not only in the classroom but in life as well.  A friend of mine helped me to come up with the acronym SOAR which stands for

SAFE BEHAVIOR

ON TASK

ACT RESPONSIBLY

RESPECT SELF/OTHERS.

At the beginning of the year, my students and I work together to determine what each of those things looks like in the classroom, on the playground, at lunch, in the hallways, and even in the restroom.  Then as the year progresses we discuss how SOAR helps us outside of the classroom in our community.  I use this for behavior management because it puts the responsibility back on the students.  If someone is not "soaring" he/she fills out a reflection sheet in which he/she must answer the question "In which area(s) were you not "soaring"?  I have found it to be a great asset to my classroom and my students.  Visit my teacher shop on Teacher's Notebook if you would like a poster for your room.  Click the picture below.