Finding effective strategies for classroom management in kindergarten is a puzzle. Traditionally, classroom management focuses on control rather than connection. It’s built on a set of reactive strategies based on threats and bribes that are meant to force students into compliance. But do these traditional classroom management strategies work? Maybe in the moment, but they’re not effective for sustainable change. You’re left running on a hamster wheel of managing disruptive behaviors and feeling like you have no time to teach.
So, how do you create an environment where you’re not constantly putting out fires? Here are 10 simple and effective classroom management strategies and tips that will make a long term impact on your classroom and students.
1. Create effective classroom rules
Classroom rules and expectations are the foundation of your strategies for classroom management. Without them, students don’t know what is allowed and what isn’t.
Creating classroom rules for kindergarten seems straightforward, but it can be a challenge to create rules that are effective enough to actually help you manage your classroom. There are several tips that will help you make sure you have classroom rules that actually work, including making sure they’re specific, phrased positively, and broken down into steps. (Click here to download the free guide to creating classroom rules that work)
2. Teach, model, and practice routines and procedures
In addition to classroom rules, you must establish strong routines and procedures. Routines and procedures are the what, how, and when for everything that happens in your classroom.
It can be easy to assume that your students know how to do things like line up or unpack, but the rule of thumb is: assume that your students know nothing. This is not about having low expectations for your students, but rather, to ensure that you teach them exactly how you want them to do everything you will expect of them.
Breaking down each classroom routine into steps, modeling these steps, and allowing ample time for your students to practice and receive feedback is so important in the kindergarten classroom.
3. Use nonverbal hand signals
Kindergarten students have a lot to say all the time. If you call on every student when they raise their hand, you’ll never get through any of your lessons! Establishing nonverbal hand signals for your students to use when they need to use the bathroom, tell you that they agree with someone, or need to get a drink of water will cut down on the amount of disruptions that happen every day.
Brainstorm what you want this nonverbal communication to look like and then teach and model it to your students. Give them opportunities to practice these signals and review them before lessons to remind your students to use them.
4. Use a visual schedule
Routine and structure help students feel safe. One way you can help students know what to expect throughout their day is to use a visual schedule. Using this tool will also help to cut down on the “When are we doing (blank) questions that kindergarteners constantly ask. Visual schedules are also a great way to prepare your most challenging students for what’s coming next.
Create a visual schedule with words and pictures and post it somewhere in your classroom where your students can reference it. Find a way to communicate what you’ve already done and what things you have left to do. For example, flip the card over when you’ve completed math, or use a star or an arrow to move down your schedule as the day goes on.
5. Read the room
There is so much we need to teach in kindergarten, but kindergarteners’ attention spans are very short. As a rule of thumb, think about your students’ attention spans as 2 minutes per years of age. If they are 5 years old, their attention span is approximately 10 minutes long. That means a whole group lesson that lasts 30 minutes isn’t age appropriate (even if you really need to get through that lesson).
When students become disengaged in a lesson, disruptive behaviors start to pop up. It’s important to keep your lessons short and allow for movement breaks if you notice kids start to fidget or space out. Although this might take time in the moment, you will get through more content in the long run because you won’t have to constantly stop to redirect students who have lost interest.
6. Vary instruction
In addition to paying attention to your students’ attention spans, you can prevent disruptive behaviors from happening by keeping your students engaged in lessons. One simple way to do this is to vary your instructional methods.
For example, if you review letters and sounds the same way every day, your students are likely going to find letters and sounds very boring by the end of the first month of school. You might start to notice kids talking to one another, playing with their shoes, or spinning on the carpet when it’s time for phonics. You can teach the same content but change up the delivery to keep it engaging for students by doing things like: using different voices, letting students have a turn being the teacher, or incorporating body movements.
7. Be purposeful with your energy
So many times, we just go with the flow when things are going well in our classroom. We might walk around quietly and monitor our kids. We might pull a few kids and do some quick assessments while everyone else is on task. But when a student starts to engage in a challenging behavior, we turn our energy on high. We give that student all of our attention and engage with them to try and stop the misbehavior.
But what does that teach our students? It teaches them that when things are going well, they’re invisible, and they get nothing from us. No energy, no attention, no engagement. But when things start to go wrong, they get all of our attention. For students who are craving that connection with you, this is gold. It teaches them that misbehaving is the quickest and easiest way to a connection with you.
Instead, start giving your best energy when things are going right. Energetically recognize your students’ successes in detail, celebrate their good choices and rule following, and notice their positive behaviors. On the flip side, give neutral attention to the challenging behavior that’s occurring.
8. Utilize behavior specific praise
So, how do we energetically recognize our students’ responsible choices? When you notice a student engaging in positive behavior, you want to describe that behavior in detail (and make sure you’re giving it your best energy!). This tells the rest of your class exactly what you’re expecting to see while showing your students that they can access your attention and gain connection when they’re doing the right thing!
It’s important to be very specific when you’re doing this and not just use blanket statements like “good job.” The more specific you are, the more the rest of your students know exactly what you’re looking for. (Ex. I’m choosing Dexter first because he’s sitting with such a calm body and raising a quiet hand.)
9. Have consistent responses to disruptive behavior
When those disruptive behaviors do pop up, it’s important that you have a consistent, neutral response. If you vary your responses to challenging behavior, it can be more difficult to stop the behavior. Take a few minutes to think about the disruptive behaviors that you see most often in your classroom, and decide exactly how you will respond to them every time. (It’s also helpful to share this with any other staff who works in your classroom so they can respond the same way as well!)
10. Follow through
Not only do we need a consistent response to disruptive behavior, but we need to make sure that we follow through with demands and consequences. Your students will learn quickly whether or not you follow through on what you say will happen.
For example, if you say that a student needs to put a toy in their mailbox or locker and they start to cry so you let them keep playing with it, you’re sending that student the message that if they cry, you will give in to what they want. It can be very difficult to follow through on demands that you place, but it’s one of the most important behavior management tips!
Next Steps
Having a strong kindergarten classroom management system is so much more than just punch cards and bribing with rewards. It’s about having effective strategies for classroom management, including teaching classroom rules and expectations, practicing routines and procedures, and having a plan to address the great and the challenging things that our students do.
Click here to download the guide, How to Create Effective Classroom Rules. This free guide is full of tips that will support you in crafting effective kindergarten classroom rules that will help you run your classroom with ease!
