My story... the short version

This is the beginning of my fifth year teaching.  I taught second grade for three years, kindergarten for one, and began this year completely prepared to teach first grade.  Having experienced both kinder and second I felt ready and excited about first.  But about a month or so into the school year, I was transferred to another school due to population changes.  While I definitely miss my friends and my principal at the old school, the opportunities and support I'm getting at my new school make the move worth it.  I can tell I'm really going to grow as a teacher because the expectations at this school are so high.  But for the second year in a row, I've started with a new class at the end of September.  Setting up the classroom community and expectations for behavior, procedures, and routines has not been going as planned.

My students all came from other existing classrooms.  They already new school procedures and routines so I was learning from them.  Now, I'm ready to implement some of my own rituals and routines in the classroom.  I have got to get talking and behavior under control because their is way to much to learn!  We can't waste time worrying about behavior.  After my observation today, my mentor suggested a great site.

dojo  It's called the Class Dojo.  Students each have an avatar which represents their score for behavior.  They can earn points for positive reinforcement but also lose points for negative reinforcement.  

I'll post again later to describe how it's working in my room and how I like it.  On top of that, I'm also using our grade-wide discipline plan which includes seven steps of consequences before getting written up and/or sent to the office.  The steps are:

• Walking 5 minutes of recess
• Silent Lunch
• Walking ALL of recess
• Calling Parents
• Time Out
• Parent Conference
• Discipline Referral (sent to office)

They're really good kids... they just need me to be more consistent with management of the classroom.  While this stresses me out, I know what needs to be done to change it.