As with any teacher, especially a Kindergarten teacher, one of my goals is to create a positive climate in the classroom. I want a place where my students can not only learn in, but also feel happy to walk into (and thus making learning even easier). In my Kindergarten classroom, I employ many techniques to try and pull this off.
Classroom Decorations
The first thing for me is the classroom itself. When anyone walks into my classroom, there is no doubt that it is Bear Class! With a bear greeting people at the (outside of the) door, a sign saying, "Welcome to the Bear Cave," in the class, a bear teacher saying good bye at the (inside of the) door, a bear alphabet over the white board, etc. And of course, every bear in the classroom has a giant smile on its face.
Then we have the other, non-bear, decorations. We have a wall with smiling shapes, we have smiling planets going around the class, a wall with all the colors of the rainbow on it (plus a few more colors as well), and we have a, "Welcome to the Animal Kingdom," wall too! On the white board, we have their names in order to show who is the "Leader of the Day." Plus, we also have the (colorful) calendar and the (colorful) date. Next to the white board is our behavior chart with their bears lined up on a daily basis trying to move up to.... OUTSTANDING!!! (More on this later.)
The last great thing we have is the seasonal tree. I add and change things to this tree throughout the year. In the spring I add leaves to it throughout the season to show its progress of blooming; I add more and more flowers and animals as well (smiling animals of course). By the time it is summer, it is so full of... well everything! Then in fall, I start to show the leaves fall and I change the color of some of the green leaves to red, orange, yellow and brown. I start to remove some flowers and animals, and the tree just looks more bare overall. For winter, I change the tree into a pine tree and start to decorate it like a Christmas tree! I also add snow (cotton) around it. The best part of it all.... the students help me with all this! Either they tell me where to put the decorations. Or, they color the decorations themselves and then we put them on the wall. One last thing to mention, is how I write key vocabulary words on the pictures in order to enhance my students vocabulary. The tree will have the word "tree" written on it; a bird will have the word "bird" written on it; etc. I love it when on spelling tests, my students "get one over on me" by telling me that they already know how to spell that word because they saw it on the tree!
Class Ownership and Responsibility
My students have their own cubbies throughout the classroom. One for their jackets, one for their indoor shoes, one for their lunchboxes, and one for their emergency clothes (in case of small accidents, they are kindergartners after all). Although, that last one ends up being a "I will put all my drawings and some toys in here" cubby after a few days and for the remainder of the year! For their cubbies, I print out corresponding bear (to go with the classroom theme) pictures with their names on them (as name plates) for them to color and decorate. Then we add them to their cubbies. This let's them personalize and own their cubbies. Throughout the year, they also add stickers to their name plates. With this the students have a greater sense of, "this is MY classroom." It helps them not only feel more confident and safe in the class, but it also makes them more responsible. If I see their cubby is overflowing with papers (of drawings they make) I tell them to make it neat again. If I see their jacket on the floor, I ask them if they know where to put it. These are little things that over a year, add up to a huge difference for them. To add to their class responsibility, we have the aforementioned behavior chart. The class starts off in the middle of the chart, at "Ready to Learn." As the day goes by, they get to move up the chart for being good students. But! They know they can move down the chart for not following the rules. Their goal is to reach the top of the chart, the also aforementioned, OUTSTANDING label. Students love seeing their bear go up and up and up. One of the best parts of the day is when school ends and my students go running to their parents with a big smile on their faces yelling, "I'm OUTSTANDING today!" But to get there, they know they have to be a good and responsible student all day.
My Roles
We have seen how my classroom and how my students add to a positive climate to the class. Now let's see what I do to help add positiveness to the class. There are many things I try to do to make my Bear Cubs (as I like to call them) have a great time at school. In order to not make this into a multi-volume encyclopedia (ha ha), I will try to just give small descriptions to some of these things.
Classroom Decorations
The first thing for me is the classroom itself. When anyone walks into my classroom, there is no doubt that it is Bear Class! With a bear greeting people at the (outside of the) door, a sign saying, "Welcome to the Bear Cave," in the class, a bear teacher saying good bye at the (inside of the) door, a bear alphabet over the white board, etc. And of course, every bear in the classroom has a giant smile on its face.
Then we have the other, non-bear, decorations. We have a wall with smiling shapes, we have smiling planets going around the class, a wall with all the colors of the rainbow on it (plus a few more colors as well), and we have a, "Welcome to the Animal Kingdom," wall too! On the white board, we have their names in order to show who is the "Leader of the Day." Plus, we also have the (colorful) calendar and the (colorful) date. Next to the white board is our behavior chart with their bears lined up on a daily basis trying to move up to.... OUTSTANDING!!! (More on this later.)
The last great thing we have is the seasonal tree. I add and change things to this tree throughout the year. In the spring I add leaves to it throughout the season to show its progress of blooming; I add more and more flowers and animals as well (smiling animals of course). By the time it is summer, it is so full of... well everything! Then in fall, I start to show the leaves fall and I change the color of some of the green leaves to red, orange, yellow and brown. I start to remove some flowers and animals, and the tree just looks more bare overall. For winter, I change the tree into a pine tree and start to decorate it like a Christmas tree! I also add snow (cotton) around it. The best part of it all.... the students help me with all this! Either they tell me where to put the decorations. Or, they color the decorations themselves and then we put them on the wall. One last thing to mention, is how I write key vocabulary words on the pictures in order to enhance my students vocabulary. The tree will have the word "tree" written on it; a bird will have the word "bird" written on it; etc. I love it when on spelling tests, my students "get one over on me" by telling me that they already know how to spell that word because they saw it on the tree!
Class Ownership and Responsibility
My students have their own cubbies throughout the classroom. One for their jackets, one for their indoor shoes, one for their lunchboxes, and one for their emergency clothes (in case of small accidents, they are kindergartners after all). Although, that last one ends up being a "I will put all my drawings and some toys in here" cubby after a few days and for the remainder of the year! For their cubbies, I print out corresponding bear (to go with the classroom theme) pictures with their names on them (as name plates) for them to color and decorate. Then we add them to their cubbies. This let's them personalize and own their cubbies. Throughout the year, they also add stickers to their name plates. With this the students have a greater sense of, "this is MY classroom." It helps them not only feel more confident and safe in the class, but it also makes them more responsible. If I see their cubby is overflowing with papers (of drawings they make) I tell them to make it neat again. If I see their jacket on the floor, I ask them if they know where to put it. These are little things that over a year, add up to a huge difference for them. To add to their class responsibility, we have the aforementioned behavior chart. The class starts off in the middle of the chart, at "Ready to Learn." As the day goes by, they get to move up the chart for being good students. But! They know they can move down the chart for not following the rules. Their goal is to reach the top of the chart, the also aforementioned, OUTSTANDING label. Students love seeing their bear go up and up and up. One of the best parts of the day is when school ends and my students go running to their parents with a big smile on their faces yelling, "I'm OUTSTANDING today!" But to get there, they know they have to be a good and responsible student all day.
My Roles
We have seen how my classroom and how my students add to a positive climate to the class. Now let's see what I do to help add positiveness to the class. There are many things I try to do to make my Bear Cubs (as I like to call them) have a great time at school. In order to not make this into a multi-volume encyclopedia (ha ha), I will try to just give small descriptions to some of these things.
- Lead by example: I will start with this one, because no matter what I teach my students, no matter what I expect from them, if I myself don't do those things I want them to do, then it does not matter. I need to be the FIRST one to do those things I expect from them.
- It's OK to be human: Our motto in Bear Class is, "It's OK to make a mistake, as long as we learn from it." I show my students that it is okay to not be perfect. All I want from them is to see that they are trying. Especially with how stressful Korean society is with education. I want my students to be happy when learning, not stressed out because of it. The best way to show them this is by showing them that I too make mistakes. In fact, I reward my class if they catch my mistakes. If it was something small, like calling a student the wrong name, I give them a high five. If it was something big, like I wrote the wrong answer on the board, I let them move up on the behavior chart. Either way, I always mention it to them that I just made a mistake and then I thank them for helping me to correct it. It is my hope that if they can see that a teacher can make a mistake and be okay with it, then so can they. I'm not perfect and I don't expect them to be either. I am still growing and learning, so of course so are they.
- Share personal stuff: I share details of my life with my students, I open up to them. In turn they feel closer to me and they open up about their lives too. The best part of this has been with some of my previous Kindergarten students who are now in fifth grade. We love to talk about superhero movies. Did we like it or not? Have we seen the newest trailer? Etc.
- Get to know them beyond being students: By sharing personal stuff, it is my goal for my students to see that I care about them beyond just being students. I want them to see that I care about them as people.
- Add them to the lessons: By learning personal stuff about them, I can then add that information to my lessons. If a student likes dinosaurs, I can add dinosaurs into the lesson. If a student likes the color purple, I can add purple into the lesson. Students especially find it interesting when I include Korean culture into the lessons.
- Set clear goals: By this I mean, not just talk about them. I mean actually make them into a lesson with student involvement so that there can be no confusion about them. For example, when I teach my students about "excuse me" and "I'm sorry," I role play along with a volunteer the situation. Then I have them role play themselves. Like this they can actually see what happens when people bump into each other. After one day of role playing this, it is so great hearing, "Excuse me," all over the school from my students.
- Discipline: Be consistent with the rules, otherwise students will not think much of them. Don't show favoritism, when one of the good students breaks a rule, make sure you treat that student the same as the student who tends to break that rule more often. Use compassion after the "scolding." Use this time to make them grow. I do not just scold them and that is all. I make it into a mini-lesson. I ask them, what rule did they break? Do they understand why they shouldn't do that thing they did? What can they do next time to not break it? I end it with reminding them they are good students, but they just happened to make a mistake at the moment. That they should try and not do that again, to learn from it. This strategy I employ here has been, in my opinion, very helpful for those "aggressive" times (bullying). To be honest, I am hesitant to say "bullying" because at this age (5 and 6 years old) I do not really see it as bullying, but more along the "me, me, me" mentality many children have at this age. It tends to not really be on purpose, but more selfish oriented. Regardless, it does happen at times, but by being consistent, showing compassion, and making it into an unofficial mini-lesson, these "aggressive" times do seem to go way down.
- Set high (realistic) standards: Throughout the academic year, I expect the best from my students. I push them to always try their best. I try to implement many, if not all, of the above strategies in these standards. My students know that I am not looking for a perfect student, but for a young learner who is giving it their all! We (they and I) should just try our best. I know that by combining all of the above, my students DO reach these high goals I set out for them.
- Humor and fun: No matter the lesson, no matter the class, I always try to use humor to make my class fun. If my students are not smiling and laughing, then I need to change my strategy. Whether it be by making funny faces, funny noises, funny body language, jokes, messing up my hair, drawing funny pictures, showing funny images, videos, songs etc. I try anything to get my students to be happy. I believe that a happy student is more likely to be involved in the lesson and thus, more likely to learn.
- Passion for teaching: I love teaching! I enjoy seeing my students everyday. I love seeing them succeed. It makes me happy to see them overcome an obstacle. It is my pleasure to see how much they grow in a year. It is my hope that my students can see my passion and that it motivates them too.
- Less "no": One thing I have learned through my many years teaching, is to try and say less "no." What I mean is to change a "negative" sentence into a neutral or "positive" sentence. For example, instead of saying, "No running," I try to say, "Please walk." However, I will be honest and say, this is one of the things I am working on the most to try and do more of. I don't think I do it enough yet. But as stated above, (along with my students) I am still growing.
- Classroom agreements/contracts: Something I recently learned about. Since this is still very new to me, I have not implemented it yet. However, from what I have seen, it is very promising. I am very excited to try this out in the near future.
- Classroom meetings: Another recent discovery. Just like the above strategy, this is something I am excited to implement in my classroom. I just need more time to get to know the strategy more. At the moment though, it also looks very promising.
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