Managing the Kinders

In college, a professor once told us that Elementary Education is 10% content and 90% behavior management.  Ironically, we only receieved 1/2 a semester of Classroom Management with an Early Childhood Education degree. This blew my mind at the time, and still does, as I continue to face challenging classroom management issues each year and search for tried-and-true methods of preventing and responding to behavioral issues in the classroom. {Soap Box: 20-25 kindergarteners to one teacher (with NO AID) is absolutely ridiculous and should not even be legal.. but that's another story}. 

After my first two weeks with this new class, I knew I needed to make some changes in my teaching procedures/techniques. This year, I have many children who are VERY easily distracted and many children who talk waaaaaaaaay to much. So I did some research. I wandered across a technique called "Power Teaching," and I watched a mesmerizing video of power teaching in action. I decided to adopt a few of the techniques and try it with my kinders. Thank you, Power Teaching.......it worked! Well, so far. 

Two points of focus for this year's class was transition times and attention-grabbers. Power Teaching introduced me to a solution to both of those problems. We now march to the carpet and back to our seat as we chant the name of the place we are going. For example: If we are leaving the carpet, heading to our seats, we chant "Seat, seat seat........ seat, seat, seat......" as we tap our legs and march to our seat. Each student stops chanting, sits, and puts their head on their desk when they reach their seat. Voila! No one got distracted on the way and started drawing on the floor with permanent marker. I'd say that's a win. The attention-grabber I adopted was "Class? Yes!" When I say "class," they say "yes." However I say "class," they say "yes." For instance: If I say "classity-class" they say "yessity-yes." Cute, huh? Second, we use "hands and eyes." When I say "hands and eyes" they repeat me, clasp their hands in their lap and focus their eyes on me. This one is done repeatedly during carpet time, as I have a lot of drifters. 

I'm still looking for a solution to the "busy hands" issue, as I have a few kids who always need something in their hands. I would have no problem handing the child a stress ball and letting them have at it, except they seem to be unable to fidget and focus at the same time. Thus my google research begins again. If you've got any suggestions, please share! :-)

-Ms. Taylor