Fuzzies to the Rescue

So bare with me...I wrote this oh, 2 weeks ago but life has been ridiculous.

It's official...it's week 5 of school and things are finally starting to look normal. As I mentioned before, I taught 2nd and 3rd grade for 9 years before this year. It usually takes about 2 weeks for my room to be up and running. Not so in Kindergarten! Today was the first day that my Writer's Workshop actually looked close to the real thing. The past 4 weeks have just been utter chaos not up to par.

I run a tight ship. I don't like it when kids are rude, I make them say "yes ma'am" and "may I go to the bathroom". I like the volume of my room to be a gentle whisper, and the first 4 weeks it has been anything but. I keep telling myself they will get there. My friends and teammates kept telling me it takes 6 weeks and I heard them, but I'm not sure I really believed it in my heart. Tuesday of last week was the turning point.

As I said, I run a tight ship and I was having a very hard time not having an immediate consequence for good and bad behaviors. In second grade I used clips. I can hear the boos from here. When a student didn't follow directions, I would would simply point or say, "clip" and have them move their clip down the chart. It was nothing personal. I wasn't upset. That is just how it was. I was known to say, "What were the directions?...Did you follow the directions?...So are you obeying or disobeying?...that is why you need to move your clip." If I saw positive behaviors I would ask those students to move their clips up. It worked wonderfully. I was told that in kindergarten this doesn't really work well because then don't connect the moving of the clip and the behaviors. I was at a loss. I had no idea what to do with these 5 year olds who would follow directions for 1 second and then be off the walls the next. I started feeling bad for those students, and you know who I'm talking about, that are good all the time and they are always doing the right thing (criss-cross apple sauce, one finger on their lips and 2 fingers in the air, never shouting out answers, whispering during independent work, playing the centers correctly).

Then it hit me. I read a million kindergarten blog posts over the summer for various authors. One that caught my eye was Classroom management with warm fuzzies by Mel D. I remember thinking this seems cute, and I wanted to try it with my 3 1/2 year old son. Then school started and the chaos took over! I found myself drowning. My husband and I were talking about what to do about our son's constant whining and this post came back to me. I decided that I would also try it out in my classroom. So after a crazy Monday, I went to the Dollar Store on my way home and bought 3 packs of "fuzzies". These are the craft pom pom balls Mel D uses to bribe generate excitement over good behavior in her classroom. She gives fuzzies for various things, which you can read about in her post. I decided to hand them out for the behaviors I needed help with: cleaning up quickly but safely, pushing in their chairs, remembering all their responsibilities in the morning (ordering lunch, unpacking, eating breakfast, etc), raising their hands on the carpet, staying in one spot and NOT CRAWLING ON THE FLOOR, NOT LICKING OTHER STUDENTS...I wish I were making this up, but I am totally serious!!

So with a basket of fuzzies in hand I just jumped right in Tuesday morning. I gave each student a plastic cup (I'm ghetto I know, but it was all I had), and I started handing out fuzzies every time someone remotely did the right thing. THEY LOVED IT! If students came back to the carpet by the time the clean up song was over and they had cleaned up correctly and safely they got a fuzzy. Whenever a chair didn't get pushed in I took a fuzzy. My students who would wander explore the room during mini lessons would snap to attention when I told them I would take a fuzzy if they didn't come sit back inside their square on the carpet.

The other trouble spot I had was chaos in the hallways. We could not walk in a quiet straight line to save our lives! So I would pick one of my equity sticks and whoever I pulled was my secret walker. If they followed the hallway rules (Second tile, quiet lips, only 1 finger on the wall to ground themselves) they could earn 5 FUZZIES!!!! You would have thought I offered them a million dollars! The first time there were a lot of tears when only one student got the fuzzies but most of my kids are getting the idea that only 1 person wins.

On Friday, we had a class meeting and everyone got to count the fuzzies in their cups. Everyone clapped for their friends no matter how many or how few fuzzies they got. Everyone was really proud of themselves and we even reinforced the 1-1 correspondence for counting. After everyone was recognized, we traded in our fuzzies for reward coupons. This was one of the best parts. They use their fuzzies to buy things like line leader for the day, calendar helper, computer dibs, and teacher's helper. THEY WENT CRAZY OVER THESE PIECES OF PAPER!!!! I bought the reward coupons cause I'm lazy and didn't want to make them myself. Mel D sells sets on her TpT store. All I had to do was print them out on cardstock, laminate and cut them out. I put them in one of the sectioned bead containers that she suggested and *poof* they were done.

Now I'm able to get through more of my lessons and I don't feel as stressed over their kindergarten behaviors. I was even able to switch over my room to fun fall apple and harvest themed stations! Now if only I can get this testing out of the way (mClass, Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, ESL and Measurement of Academic Progress--Primary) THEN I'll really be able to start teaching!

What do you do to manage the chaos in your classroom? You know I'm always looking for more ideas to copy!