Classroom Management Must-Haves for Elementary
Whether you’re a brand new teacher or a veteran of 30 years…classroom management is always a number one priority to ensure students feel safe so they can succeed academically and personally. Effective classroom management also helps you the teacher to maintain control of their classroom so you can focus on awesome learning opportunities!
Read on for my top classroom management must haves for elementary students that will help you establish clear expectations and rules, build positive relationships with students, implement effective discipline strategies, and encourage active student engagement.
Building Positive Relationships with Students
The most important and effective classroom management must-haves for elementary students is building positive relationships each and every day. When students feel that their teachers truly care about them, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated to learn. Teachers can build positive relationships with special handshakes in the morning, personal check ins at your desk, asking about their extracurricular activies outside of school.
Use this printable Beginning of Year Student Survey for students to have them tell you all about their favorite things. This All About Me Survey for Students will help you get to know your new class a whole lot better! Use this as a Open House or first day of school activity. Make sure to keep the completed student interest surveys close so you can reference them throughout the year.
Rules and Posters
During the first week of school, create a rules and consequences poster together as a class. Write the class rules on a large piece of paper and hang it up in your classroom. Next, students can even sign it as a pledge to follow the class rules and systems in place. Finally, have your class come up with consequences together if the rules of the room are broken. It is important to stick with those consequences and rules for the entire school year.
Quiet Worker Incentives
We all know keeping students quiet during work time or tests is difficult, which is why we have a few ideas to help keep kids quiet when necessary. One of my favorites is to use quiet critters and even have your class make a quiet critter at the beginning of the school year. Another idea is to reward with reward cards (like this Free Homework Pass!) or brag tags! Kids will work hard to earn all of the tags throughout the entire school year.
Organization Systems
Make your life and your students’ life easier by having organization systems in place for an effective classroom management system. Here are some ideas to organize before school starts:
- Classroom Kindness Activity: Have students complete this Kindness Tree to build a positive classroom community
- Test Retake Policy: I LOVE this simple test retake request form
- Treasure Box and Rewards Box: Pro tip: Ask your students’ families for leftover Halloween candy or unwanted fast food toys to save you some money!
- Missing Homework Policy: Here’s what always worked for me, Missing Homework Notes
- Managing Student Behavior: These Student Self Reflection forms work like a charm!
- THINK Acronym: Remind students to think before they speak. Is what they’re about to say….True, Helpful, Intelligent, Necessary or Kind? Use this Think Poster as a reminder for students.
It is important for teachers to not only build a relationship with each and every student but to also stay organized and have behavior systems in place. Each of these ideas will help establish a successful school year full of laughing and learning. For more classroom management must-haves for elementary students check out this blog post on seven classroom management tips for teachers.
