Mia Butler

A Successful classroom management strategy that I've used in the past is keeping the classroom rules simple. I typically stick to five rules, always do your best, respect the classroom, materials and each other, use inside voices, keep your hands and feet to yourself, and listen and follow directions. For Elementary School I had a wall called The Art Smart Behavior Wall. I had art palettes for each grade level and on the palettes were the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Every art class had its own clip with their teachers' name on it. On the whiteboard, I had the word "ART" written nice and big. I explained to my students the behavior I expected of them, which was tied to the classroom rules. If they were not following the rules, then they would get one warning, and if the behavior was not fixed, a letter was erased off the board.  Their goal for every class was to keep all of the letters on the board (or at least two of them) if they achieved their goal then their clip was moved to the next color. The end goal was to have their clip moved to purple, and if they got to purple then students could have a free art day, do sidewalk chalk, play soccer or pick from the treasure box. If a class lost all of their letters, then their clip didn't get moved, and the class had to have silent art until I said otherwise.  This strategy worked very well for me, and it motivated the students to want to do well. I've only had one 5th grade class that would consistently lose letters often and had to have silent art so eventually, I had to adjust the punishment. Whenever they lost all of their letters, the next time they came to me they would have silent art, and they would spend the entire class period writing the art room rules over and over until class was done. They hated it, and halfway through the year, they learned their lesson and adjusted their behavior.