My Best Classroom Management Idea

Classroom management needs to be thought about long before the students ever come into the classroom.

Before I started teaching the Nursery Class (2 year olds), I had seen one of my future students in the weekly "mommy and me" conversation class. She was just two years old and a little terror. She ran around the classroom the entire time. And her mom didn't do anything about it!

I thought that she was going to be a real problem in the Nursery Class so I discussed options with my assistant and we came up with the Smile System.

This is the way that the Smile System works. Every month, we create a piece of paper with each day on it. If a student is good during lesson time, then they get a Smile (drawn on the paper) and a hug from the teacher. If they are not good, they don't get a smile. Simple as that.

But it's amazing how fast such young children can really understand the system. Even if they don't speak much English at all, I can always say to them, "Smile today?" with a bit of a warning in my voice, and immediately the students will start behaving.

This has worked great for me and I really think that it's one of the best ideas that I have thought of.

Ironically, after developing this whole system based on the behavior problems that we thought this little girl was going to have, she ended up being a perfect angel in class. There wasn't a single time that she did not get a smile.

Love,
Shannon Sensei

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