What is classroom management?

1. Classroom management is everything a teacher does to assure that he

or she will have a well-organized classroom where children can be

successful.

2. What a teacher does to keep children constructively engaged in

activities that are developmentally and educationally appropriate.

3. Providing a learning environment that fit the needs of every child and

hands on approach to learning.

Four Components of classroom management

1. Physical environment
a) space arrangement – provide a number of activity/learning centres

within the available space where children can discover and learn for

themselves

b) Traffic patterns- traffic patterns between areas must also be

carefully arranged.

- can children move freely from one area to another?

- do they have to squeeze between tables and room dividers or step

over someone’s block structure to get a library book?

- do children frequently collide because the placement of furniture

encourages running in the classroom?

c) Space for group or individual activity- delineating space can be

achieve through the use of movable partitions, shelves, masking tapes

or colours

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 d) Storage of materials- keeping items in consistent locations is the key

to effective use of space and another way to help children become

more self-sufficient

2. Materials and activities

- appropriate materials and appropriate activities

3. Management of time

- Transitions should be smooth to reduce conflict and misbehavior and

help children move from one activity to another with ease. It can also

offer many learning opportunities for children. Children need to know

what is expected of them as they move from one activity to another.

- Young children should not be hurried, nor should they be made to

wait for extended periods of time.

Some contributing factors towards smooth transitions are:

- clear signals to indicate the end of the activity (at least 10 min. notice

ahead of time, with reminders at 5 and 1 min intervals to allow them

time to finish the activities they are involved in)

- appropriate signals (a bell, a sign or a hand signal)

- designate the meeting place

- clear instructions

- appropriate supervision

- reduce waiting time

- clear passage ways

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 - use of transition songs or activities

Gaining control: if you want to quiet children and gain control:

- ring a bell

- lower your voice

- give a quiet sign

- say “1-2-3, eyes on me.”

- Play, “Simon Says”

- Blow bubbles and challenge children to be quiet before they pop

- Count backwards from 10

- Use a puppet to give children directions

- Clap your hands and ask children to repeat the pattern

4. Guidance strategies/ discipline

Punishment vs Gudiance
Punishment is negative. It is intended to hurt, humiliate, or retaliate. The

purpose of guidance in contrast, is to teach children to behave appropriately.

Discipline is part of positive child guidance; punishment is not.

Causes of misbehaviour

• Teachers need to understand the goals of children’s misbehavior.

• Dreikurs maintained that a child who is misbehaving is following one

of four goals:

1. Getting attention. This is the most common initial goal of children’s

behavior.

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 2. Getting power. To active this goal, the child uses all kinds of power-

seeking techniques. He may be sullen, argumentative and may throw

temper tantrums.

3. Getting revenge. Children misbehave when they feel beaten down in

their struggle for power and retaliate, seeking revenge for the hurt

they feel others have caused them.

4. Displaying inadequacy. Children who have failed to get attention may

become so discouraged that they expect only failure and defeat.

Adult’s Role:

1. Indentifying the child’s goal.

2. Resisting the impulse to fight back.

3. Withdrawing from the conflict.

Communicating Expectations

Effective classroom managers need to learn how to communicate the

bahviours and attitudes they want to develop in children.

Some of the guidelines are:

1. Using positive language

Tell children what to do rather than what not to do. For example:

-“Sit on the chair,” rather than “Don’t sit on the table.

- “Turn the book pages by the top corner like this”, rather than “Don’t be

so rough with the books”.

2. Emphasis the desirable aspects of behavior and communicate that you

have confidence in children’s ability to use them, for example

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 - “Jane knows how to clean up.”

-“Yvonne is still learning to hold her urine until she can get to the

toilet in time.”

3. Give choices only when you are willing to accept the children’s

decisions, for example,

- “Do you want to help me to clean up or wipe the table?”

4. Explain the reasons behind our expectations

-“I can’t let you hurt other, children and I won’t let anyone hurt you

either. School must be a safe place for everyone.”

- “Place the blocks on the shelf like this. If you throw them in they

become chipped and broken, and hurt out hands when we build with

them.”

Translate negative statements to positive statements:

Don’t shout in class.

Don’t push your friends.

Don’t throw the toys.

Don’t fight with your friends.

Don’t tear the books.

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Positive discipline strategies

a. Planning ahead to prevent problems- if children are left to sit

doing nothing, there would be problems.

b. Set up simple, clear and consistent rules- jointly formulated and

provide rationale for the rules

c. Job descriptions for children- involve children in the

responsibility of the room

d. Encourage and praise appropriate behaviours

e. Tell children what to do instead of what not to do

f. Re-direction- put the difficult child into a new centre or

activity. A classroom activity might help a screaming, hostile

child to calm down and gain control of himself (e.g. play dough)

g. Logical consequences – we hold children responsible for their

behaviours

h. Time out -the amount of time a child sits in time out should not

be more than their age in minutes. (e.g. a 4 year old child should

not stay more than 4 minutes) State what the child did wrong

and give them a replacement behavior, such as, “Next time,

remember to…”

i. Time Away- remove a child from an overwhelming situation to

provide a supportive cooling off time with an adult present

j. “Say it!” – teach children to “use your words”, say how they are

feeling. Teach them socially acceptable ways of dealing with

their feelings.

k. Eye contact- many times if you look directly at the child, he or

she will stop the negative behaviour

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How to deal with common behavior problems
Sharing/taking turns- two children want the same toy- snatch toys

ü Make sure you have more than one toy available so children have

alternatives or other similar interesting alternatives.

ü Develop turn taking strategies in other areas of the classroom so that

children experience turn taking on a regular basis.

ü Use the conflict resolutions process to help children resolve disputes

with words rather than actions.

Restless children can’t sit down, noisy, scream, run around

ü Provide opportunities in the environment and throughout the daily

routine for children to exercise large muscles

ü Alternate active and quiet activities throughout the daily routine.

ü Make transitions active, creative and fun.

ü Avoid long waiting periods without a focus.

Children defiant, will not follow instructions, rude tone of voice, walk away

ü Consider child’s development.

ü Offer child many choices throughout the day. Give alternatives only

when they are truly choices. Instead of, “do you want to pick up your

toys now?”say, “it’s time to pick up the toys, do you want to put away

the doll or the blocks?”

ü Anger control techniques (count 1-10, talk it out, deep breathing)

ü Model appropriate tone of voice and behavior. Remember children

learn more from what we do from what we tell them to do.

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 ü Give time warnings before activities change.

Child bites another child

ü Pull the child aside and firmly say that biting hurts and is now allowed.

Withdrawn behavior

ü These withdrawn children play only with family members, familiar

peers, avoid strangers both young and old, very quiet. They may not

have the social know-how to mix with friends.

ü Anxiety interferes with social interaction that causes the child to

avoid social situation.

ü Acknowledge their presence, ask them questions.

ü Give compliments for verbal responses- to boost their confidence. DO

NOT PRAISE THEM FOR BEING QUIET.

ü Be warm, friendly, patient and focus on the child’s positive points. Do

not force them to do things.

ü Try to offer the child activities and objects that will interest them.

ü Give them lots of love and praise.

Throw temper tantrum

ü It can be a learned behavior that develops over time. Parents who give

in to their tantrums, thereby rewarding them.

ü Remove the child from the group and ignore them with no eye contact

if possible.

ü “I can’t understand you when you talk like that, tell me again when you

say with your nice voice.

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 ü Time out

ü Encourage them to use words next time.

Noisy children

ü Remind child to use a quiet indoor voice, so they don’t bother their

friends.

ü Preschool classrooms should NOT be silent, but there should be a

busy hum.

Child using dirty words

ü Tell them you do not like to hear bad words and they may not say

them at school.

Other potential problems in the classroom

Consistently running in the classroom ü - formulate enforce and

reinforce rules

Wandering around, unable to choose ü Get rid of clutter, tidy up

activities layout of materials. Delineate

room using shelves.

Remaining uninvolved and unable to ü provide interesting and

stick to an activity captivating activities to

promote active involvement

Having difficulty sharing ü provide materials sufficient

for sharing

Using materials roughly or ü provide clear instructions on

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destructively how to use the materials

properly

Fighting over toys ü Provide sufficient toys for

that number of children

Easily distracted, have trouble ü Provide age-appropriate,

staying with a task and completing it interesting and captivating

activities

Resist cleaning up ü The display and storage of

materials must be simple and

uncluttered to facilitate clean

up. Use picture labels to show

where materials go for

younger children

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