Tips: Classroom Management, Procedures, Organization, Materials

Here are some suggestions for helping make your children's classes go smoothly. As always, these are just some suggestions, you may have other ways of doing things that work just as well or better.

Please feel free to use any of these ideas. You can also click on the comment link at the bottom of this post to let me know your ideas of what works well for you.

Classroom Management:
Make sure to explain to your children in the first classes what you expect of them and what they all will be learning about. Ask the children themselves for ideas of how they should behave in class and why. For example, they might say to raise their hand to say something so someone does not call out the answer before another child has a chance.

Whenever I need to quickly refocus their attention or get them to stop what they are doing quickly and listen, I use the "Give me 5" signal (This comes from the book First Days of School by Harry Wong -- a book used by many school teachers).

"Give me 5" means (hold up your hand showing all 5 fingers):

1. Eyes on Speaker
2. Quiet
3. Put things down
4. Be still
5. Listen

Really go over this signal a lot in the first classes. Have them practice before ever using it. I have the children talk to another child sitting next to them and then I say "Give me 5" and have them refocus their attention by quickly doing the 5 steps. We do this a few times and they like to see how quickly they can refocus and end their conversations.

After that it only takes a few times of reminding them what "Give me 5" means before you do not have to explain it again and just say "Give me 5" and they quickly focus. This is useful for if you forgot to explain something and need to get their attention in the middle of the art section or if you need to refocus their attention during a lesson. We also practice this again if we get a new student.

Use positive reinforcement (praise) when they are doing well. For example, "I like how _____ is sitting so quietly" and you will often find that the other children will quickly try to sit the same way so they can get praised too.

Some of my family members explained about "prayer posture" during one of the classes. This really helped as every time we say prayers at the beginning of class, the children now know exactly how to sit during a prayer (this is a good reminder for Baha'i children and a chance to explain it to seeker children).

Procedures and Routines:
Decide ahead of time how you will deal with transitions from one activity to another. One method that works well for us is to count down to zero and tell them that they need to be ready and at the right place for that activity by the time we get to zero. If you anticipate that they will need time, you can go from 20-0, for shorter transitions, just count from 10-0.

Decide what time of day would be best for you and the children for class. We happen to have our on Fridays right after school. The Baha'i parents bring the seeker children from school when they go to pick up their own children (this saves the other parents from an extra trip).

If you have lots of eager volunteers in your class like I do =), give each child a number and then have all the numbers in a bag. Pull out a random number from the bag each time you need to decide who gets to pass out materials or answer a question/give an example (if everyone is raising their hands for a turn). You'll find that the children actually ask you to do that from then on because they feel it is more fair. I always of course give them the chance to say "pass" if they do not feel comfortable. If you are doing Book 3A you can also use this same idea and have the names of the characters to act out in the bag and have each child draw out a paper and see what character they will be playing (so they do not get upset about what character they are to act out).

Decide how you plan to have children pass out materials. For example, I have the children passing out materials wait to give materials out until they see the person sitting down and ready to start the art section. This encourages the children to quickly get settled down as they know they will not get their materials until they are seated quietly.

Organization:
If you have a Costco membership, go to the stationary/office supplies section and grab a box of plastic sheet protectors (those plastic sleeves that you put paper into and then put in a binder). They last a really long time (225 plastic sheet protectors all together). Give one to each child at each lesson to keep all their materials protected. They can then keep their materials in one binder. This way the children value what they have worked on and it does not get torn or wrinkled.

Keep a binder of your own master copies of everything you do in plastic sheet protectors so you can remember what you have covered and be able to reuse again for future classes with other children/share with other teachers.

Store the crayons, glue, scissors, etc in plastic tubs/baskets (you can get these affordably at stores like the 99 cent store).

Materials:
Crayons
Colored pencils/markers (good for older kids)
Scissors
Glue
Tape
Index cards (or cardstock)
Pencils (sharpened), erasers
Construction paper
Plastic Sheet Protectors (see section about Organization)