Behaviour

[Guest]

Hi all, I need to pick your brains.

 

I am a teacher in a reception class. The class as a whole are very well behaved and behaviour as a whole has never been an issue. However when it comes to gathering and sitting on the carpet they can become very chatty and silly e.g. chatting to the person next to them, spinning on the carpet etc. They do stop when asked but can start up again. I don't like to keep stopping and starting again and I don't really like to raise my voice and repeating myself.

 

Can anyone tell me any stratgies they use that work to keep this to a minimum?

 

I do the usual like follow me exercises and simon says to keep the children focused i would just love some new fresh ideas to keep them interested.

 

Thanks

 

Have a lovely weekend every1 :-)

[Upsy Daisy]

When I'm working with the pre-school group in nursery I pick out one child who is still sitting quietly and heap praise on him/her. This usually pulls the rest up short without any raised voices or disapproval.

[Guest]

I do the same as Upsy Daisy with my year one class. My children are never sit quieter and straighter than when I say "well done xxx", it's like invisible string has pulled them to attention! If they relapse whilst I'm speaking I just give a well done again to someone who is behaving properly and behaviour gets back on track. Alteratively if I'm speaking sometimes I just get up quietly and give a sticker to a child sitting nicely, the first few times I obviously had to pause to say "I'm giving xxx a sticker for sitting nicely" but now they know what they are for and I can hand out the sticker and it pulls all the rest up without me saying anything at all!

[Guest]

Hi Aggy

How about hanging the class behaviour expectations from ceiling (in the form of photos is a brill way to show expectations), near to where you sit and when you want them sitting quietly or to stop talking use a pointy stick and point to that expectation.

Try not to look in direction of child/ren misbehaving as often that is what they want.

 

Another strategy...printout 4 different faces on different coloured card in circles (about the size of oranges).

Happy face on green, not so happy face with straight line for mouth on yellow, a sad face on red and a face with finger on mouth as if saying shhhh on orange). Laminate these, hole punch them and make into a necklace that you can wear.

Use the different faces to show the children how their behaviour effects how you are feeling. Often, once the children get the idea of the faces, you will only have to turn the face to the not so happy face and they stop talking because they don't want to see the sad face. Also use the shhhh face when they start to make a noise. Hold the face in the direction of the noise and again try not to look at the child making noise.

 

Good luck with trying whatever you decide to try.

 

 

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