Keepin’ It Together
It calms down students while also giving them a brain back to help them zone back into the task at hand.
Eastern Washington University
It calms down students while also giving them a brain back to help them zone back into the task at hand.
This tool is a silent way to convey to students that they aren’t following expectations. Simply flip Ollie the octopus from happy to sad when students are not being kind, following classroom agreements, and being safe. Once students correct their behavior, flip Ollie back to happy.
This tool is helpful because it allows students to self-monitor their noise level during independent work time, partner work, or group work. It also has a timer, so that students can also track how much time is left in the allotted quiet time.
The NOISE Tracker allows students or teacher to quietly alert the class when our noise level is getting too high. When it gets too loud, a student or the teacher can remove a letter from the end of the word “NOISE” (which will be posted at the front of the class). Once only “N” and “O” are left, a class meeting will be called and consequences will be discussed.
Classroom scouts can be used during whole class or group work activities. Students are randomly selected, or scheduled to be the scouts for the day and are in charge of looking for students who are following classroom expectations. Scouts will have the opportunity to give a shout out to a peer that they think did a good job of following expectations.
An expectation letter can be used to quietly signal to the class that it is time to be calm and focus on our work. Quickly pull up a document to type on and put it on the board screen share. Begin typing a list or short paragraph of what you need them to start on and students will alert others around the room and begin doing what is on the board.
This is a wall organizer that is used for students to place their phones in during the school day. They can put them there by choice but mostly it is used after students are caught on their phones several times then it’s kept in the wall holder until the end of the day. It’s helpful in keeping the kids focused on their learning and prevents further distractions.
This tool is a noise meter resource you can access online. It has a variety of settings that be changed based on noise sensitivity, a variety of different bouncy visuals that can be chosen, and a variety of settings if you choose to have a sound play when it is too loud. This helps maintain volume control in your classroom and gives students a fun visual to see to help them maintain their inside voices.
This tool will be helpful because students will be able to write down the problems they are having inside or outside the classroom and then the teacher and the students will work together to find a solution. Some students may be scared to share their problems or an incident that has occurred this problem-solving box can help students feel safe to share without feeling pressured or feeling embarrassed.
This tool allows the teacher and student(s) to have a meaningful conversation addressing concerns from both parties about issues that have arose. The Walk and Talk strategy also pushes the student to take responsibility and determine a solution to fix the issue. This tool is helpful because it addresses and aims to correct the issue without damaging the student-teacher relationship.