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Transcription
The speaker discusses the importance of classroom management for teachers, especially new ones, and recommends a website called The Truth About Kindergarten Classroom Management by Leslie Simpson. The website emphasizes the use of routines and intrinsic motivation instead of gimmicks or reward systems. It also highlights the need for planning, including procedures for various activities, teaching the small stuff, modeling, and giving students responsibility. The speaker encourages holding students accountable from the beginning and setting clear expectations. Welcome, kindergarten teachers or other teachers of young children. I am Riley Oster, and I recently listened to a podcast from Kids Wilson called But Why? And I really enjoyed the series of them asking why, and I kind of wanted to adapt that to why classroom management, where to start with classroom management. Now classroom management is something that is really hard to pin down for any teacher, especially first year new teachers, and sometimes even veteran teachers who just have a completely different class that doesn't respond to their past classroom management ways. Now there are many different strategies and ideas that sometimes it's difficult to find what truly works for your students and yourself. But today I'm going to be breaking down and reviewing a website that gives us ideas on what to do from day one in the classroom. Now this website is called The Truth About Kindergarten Classroom Management. It's on Kindergarten Works, and it's by Leslie Simpson. Now the first thing I really do love about this website is that it talks about not resorting to using gimmicks or prizes and reward systems. Sometimes that gets hard for teachers to keep up with or even afford. So I really enjoy that this is focusing away from that extrinsic motivation and really focusing on intrinsic and just routines. So they talk about the first thing we have to do is get a plan. A plan is super important. You want to know what you want your children to do. Do you want your children to sit at their desk quietly all the time? Do you want to give them opportunities to talk? You have to plan that out. And you also have to plan for what are going to be the consequences? Should you have rewards? And so she really talks about that, and I love that. Now she also mentions that one of the main things you have to plan is your procedures. How do you want students walking to carpet? How do you want them going to centers? How do you want them acting at centers? How do you want your students to ask you questions? You really need to plan that out and teach it from day one. Do those routines. Practice them with your students. She also talks about teaching the small stuff and has a whole back-to-school boot camp. And in kindergarten, they're young. Some of them may not have gone to school before. So we really need to focus on teaching them the small stuff. How to raise your hand, how to use scissors, how to go to the bathroom, how to set up, go into the classroom at the beginning of the day. We need to walk through this with our kids from day one. You really need to focus on what they should be doing at all times. She likes using songs, icons, social stories. But a big thing she really focuses on is modeling. It is definitely worth taking the time to model and practice this stuff at the beginning so you're not still working on it when you should be teaching. Now, she also talks about giving them lots of responsibility. Kindergartners want to be responsible for things. And when they're responsible for things, they try to do the best they can. And they can handle it. They can handle responsibility. But we also need to make sure we're holding our kindergartners accountable. She really breaks this all down. And I will have the link in my podcast pitch for anybody to listen to if they like it. And I really love this thought of going from day one, setting those expectations, holding them accountable. Don't let them, oh, they're new, they'll learn it. No. Hold them accountable from day one so that they understand rewards and consequences and what your expectations are. So today, I broke down what the Kindergarten Works article by Leslie Simpson, The Truth About Kindergarten Classroom Management, talked about. And she really talks about that rules and procedures from day one. So this is something that not definitely deals with our challenging students or students that are neurodivergent. These can still work for them great, but this really breaks down what to do when you first start your classroom and get your class. So thank you for listening to me, and I hope you come back for the next one.
