Behavior Management in the Spring

Classroom management is a fundamental part of being a teacher.  You can't teach anything if you can't manage your kids!  My school is currently working on a school wide discipline program.  The procedures and consequences vary in our class not only from grade level to grade level; but also from class to class.  I have been leading a book study with the book Setting Limits in the Classroom by Robert Mackenzie.  This is a wonderful book that is easy to read and make sense.  It really changed the way I thought about discipline and helped me to change bad habits that left me feeling exhausted and powerless.  The teachers in the book study will be presenting this book and its simple, logical ideas for a consistent discipline plan next week. 
  One thing our school does do to help with behavior is use a behavior clipboard.  Each clipboard contains a list of student names, a column for every day of the week, and a key that lists certain misbehavior.  When a student misbehaves, the teacher records it on the clipboard.  This clipboard goes everywhere with the students-even to P.E. and specials.  It makes it a lot easier to see which students are constantly getting in trouble in certain places or for certain things. 
  One last thing- in order to prevent misbehavior (well, we can't prevent all of it but we sure can try) this spring you need to keep your kids motivated and engaged.  My first year I did a "Race Across the States" with my kids.  I divided the students into groups and assigned them a cut out of a race car.  Then I posted a map of the United States in the hall.  The goal was to get your team's car from Alabama to California first.  To do that, the teams needed to earn miles.  Miles were earned by completing different academic challenges related to the concepts we were covering.  This kept the kids working hard and excited to come to school.
Katie