My discipline model is simple: I reward good behaving students and penalize poor behaving students. My expectations are written in the classroom rules above.

Good Behavior: If students are exhibiting the behaviors from the “Classroom Rules” chart, they are rewarded with homework passes and goodies from the treasure chest. Every week students with good behavior are treated to extra recess on Friday.

Poor Behavior: When a student misbehaves I first try to redirect the child’s behavior through eye contact or verbal warnings. If this does not help to improve the child’s behavior, I will resort to the traditional card pulling system.

My Behavior Chart is titled, “The Spotlight’s on our Behavior!” and has hierarchical colored cards for each student. There are spotlights on each colored card.  Each student begins the day with his or her green spotlight. For each instance of poor behavior, a student must change his or her “spotlight” (card color).

When a student changes a spotlight, they will record the reason on their behavior report that stays in the back pocket of the Homework Folder. (Look for the student’s progress each night on the behavior report)

The behavior chart is cleared each afternoon, so students can start over each day. I even allow students to move their card back during the day if they exhibit exceptional behavior.