Behavior Management Tip plus FREE Task Cards

Happy Holiday!  It's Michelle from Teach123.  This month I thought I would share a tip to help your students during work time, give you a strategy to use with your wigglers, plus share a little holiday gift.

This time of year can be so stressful for you and your students.  The change in weather frequently means inside recess, two words a teacher hates to hear.  Students are often off schedule at home and school because of holiday activities, and by this time of year, our bag of tricks is running low.

Have you heard of a sensory diet?  If you have year-round wigglers, you will want to read more about this topic so you can add sensory diet strategies to your bag of tricks.  I wrote a blog post that gives tips and has a freebie for you. 

One sensory diet strategy I like to use is a stamping station. Stamping stations are a great antidote to the wiggles, whether it is seasonal wiggles or the year-round variety.  Set up a stamping station near your desk with a stamp pad and stamp.  As a student completes part of his/her assignment, he or she will go to the stamping station to put a stamp on his/her work or a chart. You can set this up different ways.  

• Time increments:  Each time your student works 10 minutes; he/she will take his/her assignment to the stamping station and put a stamp on which problem he/she has completed in that amount of time.  Go back to his/her desk and work 10 more minutes.  At the end of 10 minutes, go to the stamping station to stamp the last problem he/she completed.  This is great for RTI!  You can use different amounts of time.  In the beginning, I use a small amount of time and gradually increase the length.  This is a great strategy to use with math assignments.
• Charts:  Use a chart when your students' assignment is going to be displayed in the hallway or for when you don't want a stamp on the actual assignment.  With a chart, you can use a stamp, sticker, or paper-hole punch.  You would be amazed at how exciting a paper-hole punch can be to your little wigglers. The two charts below are examples of charts that would work for this.  These charts are included in my Christmas Place Value Task Card packet.  This packet is FREE.

Do you need some more behavior management tips?  I have written quite a few posts with ideas and freebies for my readers.  Click on the bag below to check out my bag of tricks.

Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE.