The Typical Kindergarten Student 

• Kindergarten students are 5 years old, typically. 
• While some (or most, depending on the area) kindergarten students have been to preschool, this may be the longest these children have ever been required to focus, ever.
• Kindergarten students love having fun and playing – anything resembling work is tedious and tiresome.
• Kindergarten students typically like school and love to help and please others.

Classroom Guidelines for Maintaining Discipline in a Kindergarten Class 

Kids thrive on boundaries. This does NOT mean that kids thrive on a super structured, every minute of the day planned out type of class. But kids do need to know where the lines are. It is difficult for a kid to please a teacher without knowing what behavior is acceptable (and thus pleasing). 

That said, boundaries are often forgotten and always tested. 

It is important to stick to your boundaries with two very important caveats. 

1.  It’s ok to change your mind. Saying no (or yes) and then changing your mind is ok – but try not to make a habit of saying no first, then changing your mind or else the kids will feel that they can get you to change your mind if they just push hard enough.
2. Kids need love too. Never substitute a boundary or “orderliness” for love. Depending on your school district, these kids need a lot of love that they don’t get at home, too.

There is no easy formula for managing any classroom full of students (any age!). 

Do you have specific questions about managing a kindergarten class? Please send me an email or question in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer each question!

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1. How Class Sizes Don’t Impact Your Students
2. Those Who Can’t Do… Ask
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Here are a few tips that might help your day go a bit smoother.

I have found that when students realize that you need help, there will be a handful of them who thrive on the opportunity to keep other students in line and provide any help you might need.

Maybe it’s the sudden opportunity to play boss of the others, but either way, enlisting students to be special helpers will often work. The one or two who try to take advantage of the situation and act up will often be put back in place quickly by the other students. At the very least, you’ll only have one or two students to deal with instead of the entire class this way.

The very nature of having no voice can help as well, ironically – the softer you talk, the more students have to pay attention to hear what you have to say. Pepper you day with jokes and secrets so that students want to hear everything you say. 

Have you tried something else that has worked? Feel free to share your wisdom!

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Now, look at the last 5 names on the list. Why did you think of these kids last? Think about each child individually. What does he or she need from you? Those kids on the top of the list are receiving the majority of your attention, thus the quick recall. Now it’s time to think about how to reach those kids on the bottom of your list.

Repeat this homework assignment each month – you will be surprised at how the names on the bottom of the list today may show up at the top of the list next month. Keep focusing on those names at the bottom of the list and you will reach each student in your class.

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1. Those Who Can’t Do… Ask
2. Kindergarten Students Need Love Too…
3. Keeping Kids Calm Through the Holidays

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With the weather turning nicer, students are often distracted and less willing to cooperate as they would much prefer to be outside playing (as I am sure you would too!). Dealing with spring fever in the classroom is a common issue for teachers, and this week’s idea is focused on taking your students outside.

This is the time to take a lesson from the unschoolers - even a simple walk outside can be an educational experience, so taking a break from the classroom is not always a loss in educational time.

Find ways to have students incorporate their current math lessons into what they see outside; have them write short stories or poems about what they see, using the senses and focusing on descriptive phrases.

Not only will this idea allow students to get out of the classroom into the nice weather, giving them a break from the normal humdrum of the classroom, but it will give them an opportunity to experience authentic learning instead of traditional book and pencil lessons.

Did you take your students outside for a spring break learning experience? What did your students learn?

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3. Turn a Card – Idea of the Week

A popular management idea that many teachers use is to hang a pocket chart in the classroom with a card for each student. There should ideally be two or three cards for each student – enough to have a green, yellow and red side. Each morning the students should all start on green – it’s a new day for everyone!

During the day, when a student misbehaves or does not follow classroom expectations, the teacher can “turn a card” and display the yellow, or warning card. If the student does not get the hint and continues to misbehave, the teacher can then turn the card again, displaying the red card, resulting in a consequence. This consequence can be calling the parents, sending a note home, or other predetermined idea.

It would be a good idea to allow students the chance to “redeem” themselves too and return to green. Otherwise a student who quickly moves to yellow or red early in the day has no motivation to finish the day on a positive note.

Have you enjoyed receiving an idea a week this month? I hope that some of you were able to glean some new idea to try in your classrooms! To keep the ideas coming, send in your favorite ideas you’ve tried, even if it didn’t work out well for you, it may just work for someone else! Send in Your Ideas

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Racist Comments are a Form of Bullying

Racism is simply a social term placed on top of a school term. Racism is when one person of one race says something hurtful to another person of another race simply because of race. This is historically seen as Caucasian individuals speaking badly of African American individuals, a hangover from the days of slavery. The sad fact of the matter today is that African American individuals are just as likely to say degrading things about a Caucasian individual. This is also racism. When racist comments are made, it is teachers should not ignore or pass lightly over the incident.

Steps for Handling Racist Comments in the Classroom

1. Stop instruction and address the comment, informing students that this comment and other like it are not funny, and are not appropriate at any time whether in school or not. Some teachers may be surprised with younger students who may not realize what they are saying. Some have heard these comments at home and are simply repeating them without realizing that the comments are inappropriate.

3. The student or students who made the original comment needs to apologize to the student who was hurt. It is important that students know that these comments are hurtful and that an apology is the very minimum that must be done to reconcile the situation.

4. Have students take some time to brainstorm positive things to say about each student in the classroom. This will encourage students to build an atmosphere of encouragement and community.

5. If racist comments are habitual, it may be prudent to teach the background of where some of the common racist comments in America came from and open the instruction to student comments about why people may make derogatory comments about a particular race of people.

The guidance counselor in the school is another great resource for handling racist comments in the classroom.

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What is the Punch Card Behavior Tool?

Basically you take an index card, write the student’s name on it along with either the class rules or some expectation you wish to reward for good behavior and place it in a protective pocket pouch like this:

Then the child can “earn” hole punches in the bottom of the card. Choose either 5 or 10 punches for one card and then provide a larger reward for getting all the punches in one day.

Tips for Using the Hole Punch Behavior Tool
You may find this tool more useful for improving individual behaviors than for general class obedience.
To use for general class obedience, set a specific amount of time, like one activity/subject, and provide punches for those students who followed the rules during that time period.
Consider keeping track of earned punches for a larger class on a clipboard and punch all cards once during lunchtime and once while students are cleaning up at the end of the day to save time.
Yankee Trader or the Dollar Store are good resources for “prizes” earned when punch card is filled at the end of the day.

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The first thing to do is start off the tutoring relationship on a positive note with the parent in the hopes that when discipline issues come up, the parent will be more supportive. The way I handled this as a tutor was to send home a “progress report” each tutoring session. On this paper I would make notes about what we did, what I noticed and what the parent could do at home to further learning.

I always attempted to make a positive note in the “what I noticed” section, as well as any academic observations. Often the academic observations were made in a way to validate the parent’s concerns and reasons for hiring me in the first place. I also attempted to make the “for further study” section as simple and straight forward as possible so that any parent with any amount of involvement could do.

When I had a discipline problem I would note it on the progress report but would make a point to mention the problem to mom or dad in person. Often this gave me a great idea as to how helpful the parent would be in managing the difficult behavior.

Often, behavioral problems stemmed from frustration with the skill we were studying, so when the student would begin to act up, I would often stop and put the blame on myself:

“ok, wait a minute, let’s stop and back up, I don’t think I taught that very well. Let’s look at this part here a little closer.” and I would break the steps down even further or explain it again using different angles. I often employed the use of simple analogies as this seemed to help my students see a complicated problem in a more simple light.

If this doesn’t work, I’ll prompt the student to ask a question so that I can know what to teach.

If this doesn’t work, I’ll try changing the approach, do something new for a bit or adjust the final goal for that moment down a bit. So for example, if the student has to write a paper and I said ok let’s write the first paragraph now, I would say ok wait, lets just talk about the first sentence, how can we grab the reader’s attention?

By addressing behavior problems by drawing the attention back to learning, I kept the focus on the lesson at hand and developed the standard of never giving up and always trying.

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It is important to remember that even if the behavior is caused by or explained by a student’s disability, this does not make the behavior acceptable. The trick is to find ways to manage the behavior in spite of the disability.

Interested in learning more? Check out this article: Managing Behaviors with Learning Disabilities. Learn not only what disabilities cause what behaviors, but some suggestions on how to manage those behaviors appropriately.

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