Behavior Management System

Stacked trays for behavior management slips

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!  A co-teacher and very good friend of mine told me I should do some blog posts about organization.  Since this wonderful teacher got me into blogging and TPT in the first place, I really had to take her advice.  She always seems to know what's really hot and what's not in the teaching field.

Years ago, when I was taking my Master's degree classes, my study group was talking about behavior management.  I had read about a system with colors to let young children know how they behaved each day.   It was based on a stoplight system with green meaning "go", yellow meaning "caution", and red meaning "stop".   I liked it, but I felt that two of the colors were negative while only one was positive.  I added blue and also added descriptions in English and Spanish to every card.  I also designed a mini-poster with faces so that children could understand a little bit better what color they received for that day.

Behavior management mini-poster

I sent home a letter at the beginning of the school year, explaining the behavior system and how their child will receive a colored slip of paper with a description every day.  I print the behavior slips on colored paper and cut each page into 6 slips.  This really works for me.  It's fast, it's easy, the students understand it, and the parents do too.  I store them in stacked trays (pictured at the top of this post), which you can buy from Lakeshore Learning.  I love those trays because the colors match.  I'm really into matching.

Ok, so over the years I've tried many different ways to display the children's names and what color they're on at any given point during the day.  I've used a rack with the children's names and a blue, green, yellow, or red card.  That didn't work because sometimes children would move their card to a different color.  I also tried a system on the board with faces, but if I stacked the faces on top of each other it was too tall for the kids to reach, and if I had them side-to-side it took up too much of my board space.  Anyway, the method that works best for me is to use a cookie sheet and square tiles with magnets on the back of them.  I bought the square tiles from Michael's arts and crafts store, and I put their names on them using sticker paper.  In pre-k, I used student photos on the tiles.  I applied colored tape on the cookie sheet itself to indicate each behavior color section.  Students can move up and down depending on their behavior, and the cookie sheet is so convenient.  You can take it with you in the hallway, out to recess, and even on a field trip.   You don't have to hold it flat, either, because the magnets stay firmly on the sheet.

Cookie sheet and name tiles for behavior management

If you'd like to take a closer look at my Behavior Management System, I have it on TPT.