I remember being a student in a high school class where my peers threw paper balls with notes written in them because no one was paying attention to us. I was a grade 7 teacher of 60+ students, I taught a grade 6/7 class where students with emotional needs threw chairs or punched when they were angry, and I taught at our local correctional facility for high school students. I currently teach students with various learning needs. Having good classroom management skills is essential to maintaining your sanity in the classroom and developing strong relationships with your students.
During my first year of teaching, I had so many learning needs that not only was I exhausted every night but I cried most nights because I thought I wasn’t meant to teach. I struggled to stay afloat. After a few months of feeling like I couldn’t do it, I finally pulled myself together, read everything I could find about improving my classroom management skills, got a mentor, had other teachers observe me, and observed other teachers in their classroom. I learned, practiced, altered the strategies to suit my personality and my students’ needs and ended my first year on a strong note.
This article won’t teach you a million steps as it can get overwhelming but I will outline a few simple and easy strategies for you to try and modify to suit your personality.
Actionable Steps:
#1. Outline Clear Expectations and Consequences
Whether you’re reading this article at the beginning of the school year or in the middle, it doesn’t matter in regards to this step. Take a moment and write down the expectations for your class. For example, “when it’s individual work time, everyone needs to work quietly on an assigned task unless they have a question for me.” I then follow it up with a consequence. For instance, “if you are talking and don’t complete your work when the time is up, you won’t get extra time to work on it because you’ve shown me that you don’t need it or you’ll run out of time and will need to take it home to work on it.”
Discuss these with your children, make sure everyone understands them and agrees with them. While it’s good and important to prep this part ahead of time, I’d recommend working on it together.
#2. Form Routines
Take those expectations that you’ve created as a class and practice them one expectation at time.
Yes! The curriculum is important but if you don’t have your classroom management under control, you and your students will butt heads all year round. You’ll struggle and they won’t learn much from you. So, practice each expectation until it becomes a routine. Every once in a while, re-visit them and practice them again.
#3. Build Connections
Have children learn about each other so that they can build strong relationships with one another. Tell them about yourself as well. It doesn’t have to be anything personal, but a few points so that they can see you as a real person who they can turn to instead of just another authority figure in their life.
Answer the following questions:
- What’s something quirky about you?
- Do you have any fun hobbies or interests that your students can relate to?
- Who are the people in your life who you love?
Answering these questions with your students and asking them to answer them should help you get started on building connections with each other.
You can also use the following resource as it’s fun and easy to use. It’s also FREE and can be found in my FREE Resource Library.
#4. Capture Their Attention
If you’re students are talking over you or when you want to teach them, you need a way to get their attention. Screaming at them or banging on something won’t work. Instead, have some fun ways to get their attention up your belt. Choose the ones you like, practice them on your own and then practice them with your students. Also, change them to meet your needs.
For attention getters, click the following link, 3 Great Attention Getters for Teachers in Elementary, or image:
Recap:
Let’s recap really quickly. Today, we looked at the following:
- The reasons it’s important to have good classroom management skills.
- Four classroom management strategies: outline clear expectations and consequences, form routines, build connections, and capture their attention.
Free Resources:
If your children are struggling to hand in assignments on time, check out the following video training: 3 Steps to Teach Children How to Overcome Procrastination to Increase Productivity.
Next Steps:
For calm down areas on a budget, for your students who have autism, CLICK HERE.
You’re welcome to join us inside ADHD and Autism Self Regulation by CLICKING HERE or on the fallowing image.
If you found this video beneficial, would you do me a favor? Share this with your family, your friends, your loved ones, your co-workers or someone who you think could benefit from this. Thank you!
I’ll see you next Friday at 5:30pm PST.
Until I see you next time, remember to create, experience & teach from the heart.
Take care,
Charlotte
Disclaimer: I’m a teacher and a parent. I’m not a medical professional, so please don’t take this as medical advice. The advice that I provide in my videos and online are strategies that I have used in my own class or at home that have worked beautifully.
