Runs with Glue

Like all teachers I have to maintain some sort of order and a standard of behavior in my classroom.   I teach middle school kids who change classes.  The issue with this was making sure my kids had a consistent method of classroom management that they could be held accountable to all day long with several different teachers.  My students are too old for a color system and I don’t have time to keep up with all of my student’s colors, I have enough to do as it is.  So being the resourceful teacher I am I came up with something I bought when I had no need for it at the time.  One day while at Wal-Mart, they had a whole wall in the jewelry/purse department of jelly bracelets in sets of 5 for $1.  Being the dork and someone who grew up in the late 80s to early 90s, I thought they were really cool and a deal that I could just not pass up, so I bought them and stuck them in my desk.  So for one of my kids who needed constant reminders about his behavior, I came up with an idea … give him 5 jelly bracelets and if I have to remind him repeatedly or multiple times to do something, I take a bracelet.  If he gets down to 2 bracelets, he gets trash duty: helping pick up trash after lunch.  If he loses all of his bracelets, he goes to the office, no arguing.  After explaining this, he seemed excited about this method and eagerly picked out his bracelets.  When the rest of my students saw him get bracelets, they started asking “why does he get bracelets and we don’t?”  I explained the process and the rest of my students seemed excited about it too, so I gave them bracelets as well.  This has been working the past few days because I explained the process to the other teachers, all they have to do is ask for a bracelet, so my kids are held accountable for their whole day not just my class periods.  Throughout the day, I receive bracelets from other teachers who are not afraid to take bracelets from my kids.  I think this works because my students have a visual for their behavior.  They are able to look at their wrists to see where they are on a scale.  It gives them a well defined limits system, so my kids know where they stand.  At the end of the day, my bracelets come back to me before carpool line, they get disinfected and passed out the next day.  It doesn’t matter what color each kid gets.  I usually go around the room first thing in the morning, during morning work and let the quietest students choose their 5 bracelets first and so on.  The only rule is they can only have 1 of each of the following colors: black, white, and red.  The reason for this is because these are the most popular colors, so I try to share them throughout the room.  I am really proud of my idea!  It may sound dorky, but I am just thrilled that it works for now and I will continue to use it as long as it works.  I think the thing that strikes me most is that my middle school boys (my class is all boys) are not too old to wear jelly bracelets, even the pink ones!