Keep Calm

Do you like your classroom to feel calm and relaxed?  I sure do!  One of my favorite ways to impact the mood of my classroom is through music.  Each morning, we start the day in a quiet, relaxed way by listening to calm music.  Over the years, I have amassed a YouTube playlist of great calming videos.  There are three major criteria for the videos I play.  First, all of these videos are longer than one hour, so you don't have to worry about them ending. Also, I like to play music that has no sudden drops or peaks in volume.  And of course, the music has to be calming.  :)  I am sharing my playlist with you today in hopes that you'll find some new quiet music to enhance your classroom environment.  Feel free to share your favorite videos, as well!

When can I use calm music?
-morning arrival time
-writing time
-reflection time
-transitions
-silent reading
-dismissal

Brain Breaks

If you teach young kids, you understand how much energy they have.  It makes me jealous...can I have just a bit of that energy to help me get going in the mornings?  Seriously, they have about 10x more energy than me.  While all of that energy is great, I'm sure you also know that it makes it hard for them to stay focused sometimes.  Enter...the brain break! 

My kiddos love when we do brain breaks.  It even helps if some of us are feeling grumpy (teacher included!).  Somehow dancing just makes the grumps float away!  I've pinned several videos on my pinterest page and loaded it on our computer desktop.  That makes it easy for the kids to pick videos, too.  A couple of our favorites are "What's That You Say" by Koo Koo Kangaroo, and "Ants in Your Pants" by Eric Herman.  Check those out and all of the other videos we use on my pinterest page!

-Abby

P.S.-  Sorry for the really long blogging break!  I changed jobs (twice!) and got married, so needless to say, I've been a bit busy!  :]

Teach Teach Baby...

Super fast post today.  I'm about to run out and get supplies for FUN DAY tomorrow.  My kiddos have earned it, and I'm very excited to do a fun activity with them. 

Anyways, I read this on lamebook today and simply had to share.  This would be awesome to do...major props to the brillant teacher who thought of it!

via lamebook

Power of the Squishy Ball

This, dear teacher friends, is the all-powerful squishy ball:


"Ohh, ahh!"

 This thing is amazing.  It has many powers, including the power to calm children and make them walk in a perfect, quiet line through the hallways.  It sat on my shelf for several weeks before it decided to show off its' abilities.  Then one day I handed it to a quiet kiddo and said, "Wow, ____, I love how you're standing.  Would you like to hold the squishy ball?"  And my life has never been the same.  I can grab this thing off the shelf, hand it to a kid, and the whole room gets quiet.  Amazing.

Of course, squishy ball has a weakness.  We can't pull on the strings or he goes to squishy ball heaven.  But that's ok, because I can get another one at the Dollar Store.  Though, the kids don't know that.  :]

Happy Thursday, and may the power of the squishy ball be with you all as you round out your week tomorrow. 

My Teaching Nightmare

Last night I had a bad dream.  Not just a bad dream…a nightmare. 

It isn’t too often that I can remember my dreams, but this one stuck with me like a piece of Velcro (I have been shopping for school supplies, can you tell?).

In this dream I had volunteered to be the club sponsor for a small group Chorus type activity.  So yes, I guess I was like Mr. Schuester in Glee.  Joy.  My motivation behind this was surely the goal of making myself “indispensable” at my school so they simply must keep me next year.  :] 

Unfortunately, the group was OUT OF CONTROL.  Like, full-out fighting.  I very much pride myself on not losing my temper, but I was actually yelling at the kids.  And they wouldn’t stop!  So the whole dream essentially consisted of kids yelling, me yelling, and the decibel level continually reaching new heights.



That's dream Abby losing her mind.



The dream ended as we were going to a performance and I felt 110% overwhelmed.  What a nasty, yucky dream.

Classroom management is not my strong point and I’m always working to improve it.  This dream hit a little too close to my real teaching fears—I definitely did not like it.  Hopefully it wasn’t a prophetic dream…

What is your teaching “nightmare”?  And how are you working on it?  I’m working on classroom management by reading all of these great teaching blogs, observing master teachers, and asking tons of questions.  My goal is to be great at classroom management in the next couple years (although I know I’ll always be able to learn and grow). 

picture source

The Almighty Marble Jar

Several years ago I had the pleasure of observing one of the best teachers ever for the first two weeks of the school year.  She is honestly the most fantastic person I've ever seen standing in front of a classroom.  So many of the ideas that I use originated from her, including this gem of a classroom management tool.

This is the almighty marble jar.  (A note on the name: it really isn't a jar, but my ESOL kiddies have a hard time with lots of the more fitting words, like "container."  And "Ms. S's Marble Container" just doesn't sound as good.)

I made a huge deal about this to the kids, so they are super pumped about it.  Every time I catch them all doing something good, I drop a "marble" into the jar.  It makes quite the racket when I drop one in--I can see all of their faces light up, and then they start concentrating on their work even harder.  It's pretty hilarious. 

When the jar is full, they get a special surprise.  I told them it could be a day of free centers, games, computer time, a video, playdough, or even a fun snack.  It's cool because each of my six groups are using the same jar, so they get to help each other out (also hence the large size of the jar, since I could possibly put 12 marbles in it on one day). 

Obviously we have a long way to go before our first treat, but once classes start back up I think we'll start earning marbles like crazy.  Right now we are doing testing, so I don't see my kiddos for two more weeks!  Sad day.  :[
 

Do you have a favorite classroom management tactic?