One thing that all successful teachers have in common is good planning. This is a big key to good classroom management! Are your lesson plans loosely sketched out so that you don't have a really good idea of where what you are doing from one moment to the next? This can cause big problems throughout the day, especially if your students are kept in limbo as you decide what to do next. Here are some tips to help you use planning as a way to encourage good classroom management.
Plan in detail
Don't just write down "nouns" or "Alamo" as your lesson plans. Be sure you write out exactly what you plan to do in detail. Use bullets to help you remember the various parts of your lesson. Also, use time frames to help keep you on track so that you know you have enough activities planned. It is always better to have too much to do than too little!
For example:
9:00-9:10--Students look up answers to the 3 geography "warm-up" questions. (teacher calls roll, checks academic calendars)
What is the latitude and longitude of San Antonio, Texas?
What 2 rivers flow through the town of San Antonio?
What capital city lies North of San Antonio?
9:10-9:15--Call on students to answer the warm up questions. Discuss answers with the class.
9:15-9:20--Lead in from geography warm up to topic for the day--The Battle of the Alamo
9:20-9:40--Introduce activity: Student groups work to sequence events leading to and during the battle of the Alamo mission. Give each group an envelope with mixed-up events and dates. Students work as a team to match and rearrange the events in the correct order by date and/or time.
9:40-9:45--Discuss the correct answers. Pass out handout which shows sequence/ timeline of Alamo battle. Students are to put these in their binder.
9:45-9:50--Closure/ Clean-up : As you are cleaning up your place, ask yourself this question: "Would you have stayed with Gen. Travis to fight even though you know you might be dead the next day?" Be ready to write about that question tomorrow in class.
9:50--Students are dismissed.
While this seems like (and can be) a lot of work up front, just think about how much more smoothly the class will flow than if you simply wrote, "Alamo" in your plans and had to improvise as the class moved along. Most likely you would succumb to the temptation of having students read the chapter aloud in class and answer the questions at the end (boring!). Your students would be restless, whispering, and causing many more disturbances throughout the class.
Although group work can be noisy (after all students must talk in order to work together as a team), at least it is productive noise and you know that everyone is actively engaged and learning!
Plan for transition times
If you are an elementary teacher, be sure to plan specifically for transition times. Don't just let things happen. Be prepared with a specific activity for students to do during a transition. This includes bathroom breaks, walking to Art or Music, or cleaning up. Some fun transition activities are:
Silent Water, Still Water (a silent game)
Simon Says
Mental Math Challenge
Brain Quest (there are commercial products available that have learning trivia questions in an easy to use format if you don't want to make up your own)
Silly Sentence Starters (students finish a sentence you start--the sillier the better) ex: I was brushing my teeth with purple toothpaste when...
Clapping rhythms
Emotion game (happy faces, sad faces) for the kinder and primary grades
Spend a lot of time in the beginning training your students how to behave during transition times. Practice makes perfect!
