Author: TCR Staff

Behavior Management

Need Your Students Quiet and On-Task? Try Secret Workers.

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Need a new strategy to get your students to stay quiet and focus on their work? Try Secret Workers. Secretly pick two people and write their names down. Announce to the class that the teacher has picked two Secret Workers. If the two Secret Workers are quiet, follow the directions, and stay on task, they will earn a reward for the entire class. If the two do not behave properly, the class will not receive the reward. Since no one knows who the Secret Workers are, everyone is forced to behave as the teacher has asked. This behavior system works well for shorter lengths of time—about half-hour to 40-minute time frames.

Rewards can be anything the teacher chooses, such as five extra minutes of recess, free time, stickers, etc. Extra recess is a logical reward. The teacher can always say, “Since you used the class time so well and stayed on task, we will have extra time to get in more recess.” Or the teacher might say, “Since you have worked so hard, you have earned an extra five minutes of break time.”

There can be variations to the Secret Workers. One variation is to tell the class that the teacher will be picking one boy and one girl. Another variation is to divide the class in half, and tell the class that one person will be picked from the left side of the room and one from the right side. After using this technique several times, the teacher can then have a competition between the two groups.

Tips: If the Secret Workers are successful, be sure to announce their names and have the class thank them. If the Secret Workers are unsuccessful, talk to them personally and do not reveal the names to the class.

It is a good idea to announce aloud how the Secret Workers are doing. For example, a teacher might say, “Wow, the Secret Workers are doing really well” or “Uh-oh, our Secret Workers need to be careful.”

Behavior Management

Students Forgetting Their Homework? Try This Behavior Reflection Approach

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If a student forgets his or her homework, a teacher may have the student stay in at recess or during study hall, do the missing work, and fill out a behavior reflection form. This form is designed to have students think about what they did, why it was inappropriate, and how to avoid this behavior next time. They need to answer in complete sentences and thoughtfully. This form is then taken home that evening, signed by the student’s parents, and brought back to school the next day. It is a great way to keep parents informed of late work and a great way to keep the student on track of his or her responsibilities.

This form is only effective for those students who forget occasionally. For the repeat offender, other measures will have to be taken to better help him or her remember. Also, the reflection form is general enough that it can also be used for other situations, such as a social problem that occurred that day in school. Filling out a sample reflection form together, as a whole class, would be a good way to model what is expected of the students.

If the teacher does not have a study hall, consider getting some teachers in the same grade level to give up one lunch period to sit for study hall. Study hall duty would be on a rotating basis. The more teachers involved, the fewer lunches missed per teacher. If this is not possible, the student should stay in from recess to fill out the reflection form and do the missing work.

Tip: The teacher may want to have a spot on a bulletin board or whiteboard for those students who are to go to study hall that day. This will also serve as a reminder to the teacher and the students that they have a reflection form that needs to be signed. It is recommended that student numbers rather than names are used on this board to avoid embarrassment.

Teaching Tips

After-Work Reflection in the Classroom

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When students spend time doing a project either alone or with a group, often one important element of their learning is left out. That element is reflection. Reflecting on what has been done is a major part of learning. Here is a reflection sheet designed to not only help the student remember what he or she did, but also to help the student understand how the current experience will help him or her.

Click here for reflection sheet

These questions are designed in a way that there is no correct answer. They are open-ended to fit each individual’s own experiences.

If the reflection is done in the same manner and for every project, it may become monotonous to the students. Remember to have students reflect on only those activities the teacher feels need reflection. In addition, have students reflect in a variety of ways. Using the same questions, students can write their answers, whisper their thoughts to a partner, or share their thoughts with the class by going around in a circle.

Tip: Hang up a poster with the questions for easy referral. Students can then use the questions to foster a quick class discussion.

Lesson Plans

More Sponge Activities for the Classroom

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See previous post for description of what sponge activities are and how they can be used to enhance learning in the classroom.

  • Choose a category such as food, movies, or places, and challenge students to think of one for each letter of the alphabet.
  • Select a category such as famous people. Have one student say the name. The next student must name another famous person whose first name begins with the last letter of that person’s name. (for example, George Bush, Harriet Tubman, Nancy Reagan).
  • Ask students a number of questions such as: Is there anyone whose phone number digits add up to 30? Or Whose birthday is closest to the date when man first walked on the moon (or any other date you have been studying)? Or If you add the ages of everyone in your family, who has the highest number? Who has the lowest?
  • Create a spelling chain. All students stand. Give them a spelling word. The first person says the first letter, the second gives the second letter, and so on. If a student gives the wrong letter, he or she must sit down.
  • Play “guess the characteristic.” Ask several students who all have something in common to stand. The class, including the students, must guess what they all have in common, such as they all have shoes with no laces, they all walk to school, or they are all in band.
  • Do a daily edit to start or fill small spaces of time. These become writing skill mini-lessons. Lift an incorrect sentence directly from students’ writing or create one including errors that students are commonly making. You may wish to focus on one skill at a time. Print the incorrect sentence(s) on the board or overhead. Have students edit the sentence and write it correctly in a section of their journals or a special notebook that can be used for reference. Follow up at some time during the day with a class discussion so the students can finalize their corrections and see that there may be more than one way to solve a writing problem.
  • An especially effective daily edit that promotes more interesting writing is Expand a Sentence. Give students a very simple sentence (e.g., The child ran.). Include insert marks where you want students to add words and underline words that they may change to something more exciting. Model an expansion for students the first time you do this activity. The new sentence may become: The very excited young lady raced wildly down the street with her red braids flying straight out behind.
  • Keep a supply of board and table games that require strategy and thinking. Use them for special fill-in times like rainy day recess. Good examples are Scrabble®, Monopoly®, Boggle®, and Chutes and Ladders®.
  • Collect word searches, crossword puzzles, kids’ pages from Sunday comics, and Mad Libs. Laminate them for wipe-off and reuse.
  • Save about-to-be discarded paper with at lease one blank side (computer printouts, old dittos, faded construction paper, etc.). Use for free-drawing time. Also encourage students to free-write; many of them also improve creativity and expertise in drawing with practice.
  • Derive many words from one. Copy on the blackboard a multi-syllabic word taken from a theme or topic of the day. Ask students to write as many words from this as they can in a specified time. Only letters from the original word may be used. This activity can be done in small groups or individually.
  • Set up a magnetic board center for sponge activities. Divide the board into “yes” and “no” columns. Prepare a magnetic name tag for each student by gluing tagboard squares with the student’s name onto a piece of magnetic strip (available at fabric or sign stores). On the board pose daily questions which involve either a yes or no answer. Have students place their magnetic name tags in the appropriate column. Discuss responses.
  • Read a short story, poem, essay, news article, talk to the class. Have students write a short first impression of it. Compare student responses.
  • Play “Three-in-a-Row.” Make game boards from 81/2″ x 11″ (22 cm x 28 cm) pieces of tagboard, cardboard, or index paper. Divide each game into nine equal squares. Provide X and O cards (five of each) for each game board. (Be sure the cards fit into the squares.) Two students use one game board; one using X cards and the other using O cards. Use this game for reinforcement or review. When a student responds correctly to a problem or activity, he/she places a card in the squares. If incorrect, the player loses a turn. The first player to achieve three in a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally is the winner.
  • Incorporate a “Brainteaser Time” into your day. Choose from a selection of brainteaser activities or have students make up some of their own. These can be presented to the class as part of your daily sponge activities.

Know a sponge activity that works great in the classroom? Help add to this list by sharing your sponge activities in our comment roll!