Tried It Tuesday

It's Tuesday, so I'm linking up with my bloggy buddy Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper.  She has so many great ideas and is always willing to share....gotta love wonderful people like her.     Today I'm going to share how I handle using a clip chart in my classroom.  I know that a lot of you use clip charts and I have to say that I've tried it and just never seemed to keep up with it.  I mean it was on my chalkboard for the entire room to see and I just didn't like that part.    So since I moved to my current smaller room last summer, I knew that I wanted to use a clip chart but I had to tweak it.  How did I tweak it???  Well...   Number 1 I didn't put it on my chalkboard (I didn't have the room on my chalkboard and I didn't want it front and center).  I glued ribbon on to the back of it and hung it on a wall using a 3M hanger in what was dead space on the wall.    

Here is a picture of it hanging on the wall...before the numbers went up.  Since my theme was mystery this year, it matched that theme.

 

  Number 2 I used cute polka dot numbers, not names, that I sticky tacked to the wall.  The numbers are assigned by their class number.  I can still see who has moved up and who has moved down, but people coming into our classroom don't know who is where.    I used calendar days that were polka dotted to match my classroom.  Super cute, huh?       Number 3

 I move more students up on my chart than down.  I find that if the majority of the class is behaving nicely, all it takes is to move everyone up and instantly the whole class is being good.  Then if I have to move someone down it isn't too far down.  I also put a "special jewel" on their number when they go up on the chart and stay there all day long.  They LOVE these jewels, even the boys.  I am going to let them take home their numbers at the end of the year.

    I have all different colors that I use all year long.       Number 4 On the advice of my 7 year old son, he has convinced me to add another color going up.  He said it will make my students go up more often than going down.  I took his advice, so we will have to see what happens next year.  And if you follow my blog, you know that I change my class theme EVERY year, so instead of the mystery theme it will be a fruit theme.  

This is what the header will look like.  I'm still working on the chart itself.  I will post about that when I have finished it. 

    Number 5 I have my students color in what color they ended up on in their student planners every day.  This way the parents know each day how their child is behaving.  This has been a great addition to my behavior management.  Now if a parent acts surprised by their child's behavior all I have to say is, have you seen their behavior calendar?            Here are the ones I made for his year.  I'll be updating them for next school year over the summer.     And that is how I have tweaked the typical clip chart behavior to fit my classroom's needs.