Monday. You dread it. I dread it. We all dread it. Mostly because it means that the weekend is over and its back to the daily drag of working and having to get up early.
Today was terrible. The kids forgot every single routine we had practiced the day before. They were wild and crazy even before lunch. And after lunch...well the site administrator (or principal) gave me a handful of chocolates on my way out of lunch because she knew it would be that bad. The aide also brought me candy to help get through the day.
I use a behavior program called Class Dojo. Each kid gets a "monster" that keeps track of their "monster bubbles". I can show it on my SmartBoard if I want but I don't have to. The kids can earn bubbles for listening, following directions, helping without being asked etc... all those things that teachers want their kids to do. They can lose points for talking, not listening, not working, hitting etc...all those things that are against the rules. I can also give or take away points from multiple students at the same time. The kids are trying to earn free time with the class iPads at the end of the week. 10 green (good) monster bubbles equals ten free minutes to use the iPad.
The best thing about this program is that at the end of the day when I end the class it gives me a pie chart of what the behaviors were throughout the day. This way I can see the trend of the behaviors. Were all the students not listening? Or were they just off task today? Did a lot of student help other kids? Were they staying on task? Were they working hard? It also gives me a percentage for positive behaviors for the day as well as breaks down the individual offenses for each child.
The positive percentage for today was 1%. That's it. And it was actually an accidental click. But with this program I can see exactly what my kids were doing so that it was this low. And I can plan to fix it for tomorrow. The student's bubbles normally get reset every Monday morning but I am resetting it for tomorrow so that they can start fresh.
Cross your fingers that tomorrow is better because I can only eat so much chocolate.
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