Top 5 Classroom Management Tips {Amanda from First Grade Garden}

Hey everyone! This Amanda from First Grade Garden. Life has been busy since I went back to school on Sept. 8th. I can't believe it's already October!! I am definitely adjusting to life as a teacher AND mom. :) I want to share a few classroom management tips that have been saving my sanity during this first month back at school.

Have you heard about Sit Spots?? They are amazing! They are basically just large pieces of velcro that stick to you carpet so that students know where to sit! They come in all sorts of shapes and colours. I bought the large circles in my classroom colours: pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. No more squishing all together or forgetting where they sit. I haven't even had to assign carpet spots yet... they just choose a spot when they come to the carpet. It makes transitions to the carpet a lot smoother!

Colour coordinated table baskets! I love when things match. I have three tables of students in my room--they are the blue table, green table, and the pink table. In their table tub they have matching scissors, dry erase markers, and baby socks (to use as erasers). I thought about putting matching washi tape on the glue sticks, but we haven't had a problem losing them yet! :)

Cut down on classroom jobs. I can't be bothered to teach, organize, and maintain 18 different classroom jobs, so I cut it down to TWO. I have a leader and a caboose. The leader goes at the front of the line, the caboose goes to the end of the line, and they both help me with any jobs I need done. Easy peasy. I choose a new line leader each day and the previous day's line leader becomes the caboose. So easy to keep track of!

This is my first year using GoNoodle and my kiddos and I just love it! I just use the free version and find it has a ton of fun videos for the kids. Watching our mascot grow is such a fun community-building activity too. We do a video after each of our three recesses. When they come in from recess, they need to get ready quickly and be sitting on the carpet nicely for us to watch a video. I also check to see if they need to get their wiggles out with a fast song such as Koo Koo Kangaroo or MooseTube, or if we need something calming to get us ready to focus, such as Mr. Catman or Maximo.

My last tip--tidy tubs!! I first saw this idea on Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits (who saw it from Rowdy in Room 300). I have a small tub for each table (colour coordinated of course) that we take out any time we are doing a cutting activity. All paper scraps go inside the tub and not on the floor. At the end of class, one student empties the tidy tub into the recycling bin. This helps for a ton of reasons: less students walking around the room, less paper in the garbage can instead of the recycling, and less paper on the floor. We do a lot of cutting with our interactive notebooks, so this has been a real life saver!

I hope you enjoyed some of these ideas! Leave a comment telling us something that has saved YOUR sanity during the first couple months of school! :)

Come check out my blog for some more great ideas! See you next time!

Teaching First Grade Tips!

Hi friends, it's SEPTEMBER! School is back in session!

I saw an awesome post from Mary at Sharing Kindergarten about Kindergarten tips and I thought {and asked her permission} I could use it to start a "First Grade Teacher Tips" blog. So here are my 3 tips for a successful first grade classroom!

First graders have the attention span of a gnat {pretty sure I do too...}. This means you only have about 6 minutes to get your point across and MOVE ON. Thankfully, I'm a bit ADD myself, so if things are taking too long, I get bored {sometimes I have to entertain myself}. The rule of thumb is, kids have the attention in minutes as their age {example, if a student is 5 years old, he/she has a 5 minute attention span}. 

This does not mean you have to change subjects EVERY 6 minutes. BUT you as the teacher should not be talking solo for over that amount of time. Introduce concepts in small, understandable chunks. Once you've hit your time limit, get some practice in with activities or small groups {I know this doesn't work for EVERY lesson, sometimes you have to plow through ;)}.

I learned from the great Rick Morris {the king of classroom management}, one option is to set a timer, when it goes off, switch your activity. 

Small groups are wonderful. Their attention span tends to expand when they are working independently on what THEY want {or at least what they THINK they want to be doing, we teachers are great at making kids think they are choosing ;)}.

Catherine from The Brown Bag Teacher is the queen of small group Daily 5. You should most definitely check her posts out!

Set high-measurable expectations. Your students WILL meet them! If you only expect them to write one sentence, that's all they will write. How should they act in the classroom, how should they respond when they are upset, what does finished work look like, what does my teacher expect me to do during this time? Push your students, they need you to expect much from them! We all know you believe in your students! Expect much of them, and they will exceed your expectations.

{disclaimer: I know there are some outliers in our first grade classrooms, but some of them will not test your boundaries if you set your expectations early and strong}

This is likely a no-brainer, but entertain, entertain, ENTERTAIN. I am the silliest of silly teachers. Not all first grade teachers are and that is perfectly fine! For me though, sometimes I just have to sing a song, talk in an accent, or dance-because some things I teach are BORING and I just can't make them exciting. Thankfully Teachers Pay Teachers and Teacher Bloggers have made it a little easier to think of those crazy entertaining ideas. Ya'll, we are competing with cartoons, iPhones, etc! Step up your game ;)

Here are a couple examples of making everything engaging for FREE {and it doesn't take much effort either}:

{this is a great pinning image ;)}

Do you have some simple {& easy to implement} tips for teaching first grade? Leave them in the comments :)

Happy first days of school!

Oh Teacher...I NEED A BREAK!

I look out out at my classroom at times and think...YIKES... we need a break. In actuality ALL of us need a little break now and then.  The best way to take a break in a confined environment is through movement and breathing.  It is healthy for the brain as well as healthy for our body.  Thus the label...BRAIN BREAK.  I relate to how the students are feeling.  It reminds me of myself sitting at a conference or a meeting and after an hour or so feeling...edgy inside my skin...I NEED A BREAK.  Our kiddos are the same way so here are some ideas I use in my classroom to provide a BRAIN BREAK.

First is my roll and do... LET"S MOVE!

Depending on the how much time you have you can roll one, two, or more.  All are designed to get kiddos moving in a small space.

Next you have two choices roll the die or just pick a few.

Again all are designed to be done in a small place. While we want kiddos moving we don't want anyone getting injured. So if 20 toe touches it too much to start...move to 10.  Think about you and what you could do to start.  (Oh no,  I may have to start at five!)

Many of the exercises can even be done right in the kiddos

chairs.

My favorite is Simon Says...

It is a rhyme and can be done at any time.

We always end with some deep breathing.

Deep breath in through the nose.

Blow out through the mouth SLOWLY.

After 2 times the "electricity" in the room is calmed.

Here is another way to get some curriculum in while getting the wiggles out!!

Or singing the alphabet while in our chair and kicking our feet out from the knee. This really helps for kiddos to get a mental vision of the alphabet and encourages speed in doing ABC order.  Like building number sense this builds letter sense.  What comes before Dd?  What comes after Mm?  Can they mentally figure that out?

Let me see you...all done in one place.  (For some that in itself takes effort:) 

I sincerely feel a classroom the moves together learns together.

So if you like these ideas and would like a copy download them here.

Click here to download.

How about sharing some of your great ideas in the comment section below!!??

Visit me at 1st Grade Hip Hip Hooray where I always have something to cheer about.

Today I am cheering for movement!