P.A.T

Miss Kindergarten is having a classroom management linky party! We all know how important it is to have positive relationships with our kids and manage our classrooms so this is great way to share ideas.  I might have blogged about this before so please forgive me if I have.  Last summer I read Setting Limits in the Classroom by Robert MacKenize and this year I led a book study using this text.  Tomorrow, we are actually sitting down to rewrite our school wide discipline plan! Anyways, one strategy I use from this book is called P.A.T. or preferred activity time.  At the start of the week I give my kids ten minutes.  Every time I see someone on task or we get a compliment, etc. we earn more minutes.  If the students are off task I simply start a timer.  I run the timer until they are following directions again.  That time gets taken away from us.  (I do a T-Chart with positive and negative time on the board).  I also set the timer sometimes-for example I give the students three minutes to put their supplies away.  If they finish before the timer goes off then they get the time added.  If they go over the time, then time gets taken off.  On Friday we calculate all our time and select an activity to do together.  This is the important part- it is for students AND the teacher! It is a great bonding time.  Some of my kids' favorites are I Have, Who Has? Games, Multiplication Bingo, Around the World, Heads Up Seven Up, Red Rover, and math games.  I really saw am improvement in my kids using this! I pulled less slips and kids worked together and encouraged each other.  With any other program- you must be consistent! If you are interested in using this strategy I encourage you to check out the Setting Limits book.  That book really opened my eyes to how I addressed behavior in my classroom.