Well, we are well into the school year. That being said, have your behaviour problems dissolved? Mine haven’t.
That brings me to my post – The Behaviour Management Traffic Light!
#thestruggleisreal
If you are a genius at making that happen, please tell me all your secrets! I’ll pay you a dollar (what can I say, you know a teacher’s salary, right?)
Well, thanks to one of my delightful friends in Grade 2 (Julie), I now have a great tool in my back pocket that helps to keep my students on task! Check out this bad boy!
This, my friends, is the ‘Carson Dellosa Stoplight Pocket Chart!’ If you are interested in checking out more information on this bad boy, you can check it out here.
I love this pocket chart. I don’t love how this pocket chart didn’t come with any labels though… Would you like to have mine?
Here is a freebie!
In my classroom, this is fine and dandy. But what next? How does it work? Is there any follow up to this? How do parents know what is happening at school? Well, here are some of the answers for you.
1.) How do you move from one colour to another?
The Rules:
As always we go over rules at the beginning of the year. We discuss appropriate and inappropriate behaviours.
We talk about what they think could get them into a ‘yellow zone’ or ‘think about it zone’. This is a good chance to figure things out together as a class so that everyone is aware of the expectations.
- not working
- chatting at inappropriate times (during tests or writing time)
- hurting other kids’ feelings
- basically anything I have to remind my students about more than 2 times goes into think about it.
We also talk about ‘teacher’s choice’
- continuing above behaviour
- physical violence (zero tolerance)
- any other activity that you deem inappropriate in your classroom
2.) Can you move from yellow or red back down to green?
In my class, ABSOLUTELY! I love when students choose to make a positive change. If they are in ‘think about it’ and they change the behaviour that moved them to yellow, I call them over to me, and then ask them to move their name back to green. They love moving that little guy back down. If they have landed in red, and they really try hard for the rest of the day, then it’s your choice.
3.) Do you have a tracking system?
I absolutely do in my classroom. I like to have a track record to show when a student has fallen into a category so that parents can see if there is growth at parent/teacher conferences, I can see if there are changes in the student, patterns between split family dynamics, among many other things.
This is what it looks like.
{Editable version in my TpT shop}
{Editable version in my TpT shop}
4.) Do you notify parents if students move to yellow or red?
This is something I work out with the parent at the beginning of the year. If parents insist on being informed after each colour change, then I do send home a note that requires a parent signature. Here is what they look like.
I tell parents that if their child manages to make it back into green by the end of the day, I usually will not send home a notice. I want my students to know that everyone has bad judgment sometimes, and as long as we try our best to change silly decisions, we don’t need to dwell on the slip ups.
5.) What about the kids who go above and beyond to work hard? Or the ones that have trouble but are working hard that day?
For this I use something called ‘Golden Tickets’.
When I see exceptional behaviour, whether it is exceptional for any student, or if a student is trying particularly hard, I reward them with a ‘Golden Ticket.’ These bad boys are easy-peasy. Print and go.
Print off the golden ticket (I usually print it on yellow paper), cut it up, and when you see great behaviour, hand out one of these bad boys. Have the student fill in their name. At the end of the week, I do a draw to see who gets to choose a prize. The more golden tickets you have, the better your odds.
If you are interested in the package that I have created to go along with this chart,
you can click here.
This package includes:
– Traffic Light labels for your chart
– Monthly Data Tracker (12 pages)
– Editable Monthly Data Tracker
– Letter to send home to parents at the beginning of the year (editable)
-Letter to send home to parents at the beginning of the year (non-editable)
– Golden Tickets
– Send Home Yellow zone Notes
– Send Home Red Zone Notes
I hope that this will help you on your journey to Behaviour Management in your classroom!
