Classroom Discipline

6 thoughts on “Classroom Discipline”

1. Janet

   January 14, 2010 at 6:34 am

   PAT activities are what my kids call ‘game day’. If they cooperate on certain issues (on time, quick and quiet transistions etc.) they earn minutes to use for a ‘game’ on Friday. (or a movie or a food day.) We have 42 minute periods and we use about 25 minutes a week for a game(-like activity). If they have extra minutes we ‘bank’ them to use for movie days or food day. (42-90 minutes).
   All discussion about what game we’ll play or if we want to use all our minutes or bank some, uses up minutes. The first time the discussion about which game uses 20 minutes and they have five minutes to play is usually the last time.
   Squirrels and drama during PAT–usually doesn’t happen, but…I stop the game, talk to the offenders, give them the choice of playing the class game without disrupting or sitting in another classroom. (I have a time out buddy for this.) “No, you can’t just sit in the hall” (and wander off somewhere.) I call home on this, too, because they were out of the class and not getting the CI I planned into the game(-like activity). Kids get the message that game-time is just my class doing something that they perceive as their choice, rather than mine. The behavior still must be within bounds, if that makes sense. So we have kids running to the board to draw the evil one-eyed duck, or their playing charades or Simon Says instead of classical TPR–same CI, same class, perception is that ‘We’re using our time to do something we want to do instead of what she wants to do like the rest of the time.’

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2. Toni Kellen

   January 14, 2010 at 7:54 am

   Thanks, Janet. It’s great to know what kind of time you set aside for PAT activities, and how you handle any disruptions – very helpful!

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3. Thomas Young

   January 16, 2010 at 7:37 am

   Janet,
   Do you have a list of some of the games you play? It sure would be nice to get more ideas.
   Thanks,
   Thomas

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4. Toni

   January 19, 2010 at 7:32 am

   Thomas,
   I’m sure Janet can give you lots of great ideas, but if you do a search on this site for PAT activities, you should find a few. A while back, Ben asked for suggestions and several people responded with their favorites
   -Toni

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5. Janet

   January 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm

   One of my favorites is ‘sentence Bingo” Takes at least a full 40 minutes to prep.
   Kids draw a Bingo board. I say a sentence in the TL several times while they draw it. (Superman flies to Mars.) I draw on the board/OHP at the same time and write down the sentence on a piece of paper. We fill up the board. (24 sentences–or 15 if you do a 4 x 4). The next day I just read the sentences in the TL and they play Bingo. Lots and lots of reps. Takes too much class time to prep, but it is good CI.
   Janet

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6. Jim Tripp

   January 19, 2010 at 4:46 pm

   A couple things I did this week that worked quickly and well:
   I make up a simple story on the fly and they draw it using 4-6 frames. I tell them when to move onto the next frame. Then they re-tell it to their partner using the drawings as prompts.
   (Simple children’s books necessary for this one, preferably student-produced ones) Each kids gets a book, reads it, and then I have them write at least 5 questions about the book. Then they trade books with someone else who hasn’t read that book. Then, they get together and quiz each other. THEN, the class quizzes me, one question per kid (they really liked that part of it all). **Be sure to walk around and help them with their questions. Also, it helped when I read a book to the class Kindergarten style first, and then wrote 5 questions on the board for them to answer. I left those on the board as models of question formation.

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