Pom-Poms for Cheerleaders: Classroom Management

 

Behavior Management may be one of the single most important pieces to building a successful classroom environment. Being an inclusion teacher for many years provided me with a first hand view of various behavior support strategies; from clip charts to classic token economies. Honestly, there are many effective ways to support good behavior within the classroom! My favorite behavior systems, including my own, incorporate both immediate reward and immediate consequence. 

Introducing the "Pom Pom" reward system! 

Kids recieve a pom-pom for positive behavior and choices. They lose pom-poms for poor choices. Kids place their pom-pom balls in a clear cup. When the cup is filled, they recieve an award! 

You can see our cup chart to left. It's a shoe organizer from Walmart with clear plastic cups in each pocket! 

Reasons I love my behavior system:

1. Emphasis on the positive. I reward children ten times more than I take away. With a simple clip chart or color card system, you can only award so many times before they have reached their max. Kids in my room can fill their cups over and over throughout the day to recieve their reward (treasure box). 

2. The pom-pom bucket (pictured above) can be carried around the room, down the halls, assemblies, etc. This allows me to continuously monitor and award great choices. Kids simply put the pom-pom in their pocket until we get back to the room! 

3. You can throw them at children without any danger of injury. Haha! I love to pepper children with review questions during transitions or a quick five minutes, quickly tossing them a pom-pom for paying attention or participation! 

4. Research shows that immediate reward or consequence is one of the best ways to manage classroom behavior. Student are tangibly receiving something or tangibly taking something away. 

5. I love to give pom-poms to cheerleaders! To foster an energic and encouraging classroom environment, I love to heavily reward kiddos for cheering one another on! (Read my other post about Awesome Losers). 

The shoe organizer is from Walmart and the pom-poms were bought at Hobby Lobby; easy, cheap, EFFECTIVE!