When starting the year, we all tend to reflect on which of our classroom management styles worked best or how can we use something new that may be more effective. Today, I am going to explain some of the management styles I have used and the pros and cons of each.
Kid Kritters / Warm Fuzzies
This is a tool that you can use for your whole class or for individual rewards. First things first, you will need to make your Kind Kritters or Warm Fuzzies. You will need small foam hearts, pom pom balls, mini googly eyes, and a hot glue gun. Making them is very easy. You will need to hot glue the pom pom ball to the foam heart and then glue the googly eyes onto the pom pom ball. The kids love them! When using these adorable little fuzzies as a whole class reward, you will also need a jar to fill up. At the end of the day, I have my kids come together and we reflect on the kindness that was shown that day. You can also do this twice in one day to fill the jar up quicker. Students now get the opportunity to nominate each other for showing kindness. For example, Cooper may nominate Kate by standing up and saying “Today Kate helped me pick up my crayons when my box spilt all over the floor.” Kate will now get to come up and receive a kind kritter to put into the jar. This is such a fun part of the day. We usually turn on music and kids will get to nominate others with our classroom microphone. Then we all cheer for the kids who are showing kindness. This is one of my favorite tools to use and use each year. If you want to use this concept as an individual reward instead of classroom reward, it is basically the same concept, you will just need a smaller jar for each of your kids. I ordered small paint cups to keep their fuzzies in. I chose these cups because the lid allows the kids to drop their fuzzies into the top hole but they will not spill out when knocked over. When the kids fill up their cup then they earn a reward.
Giant Kerplunk
This is a new system that I used last year and completely fell in love with. I use a giant kerplunk (these are now hard to find on Amazon) but a small kerplunk works just as well. This is a great goal setting tool. As a class we set a goal, we started with interrupting, because we were really struggling with talking over classmates. After each lesson or whole group activity, we reflected on how we felt after either, being interrupted or being able to share our thoughts without any interruptions. If we met our goal, a student would pull a popsicle stick with a students name on it and that kid would be able to come up and pull out a stick. Once all the balls fall from the top we earned a class prize. This is one of my favorite tools because it is a great visual for goal setting. After we earn a class reward we would fill up the kerplunk and set a new goal.
