First few days back

Well we are back from break and jumping right into it all.  I instituted my new behavior zones with my kids today and they were really excited.  It was great to see my friends who got on silver smiling big as they picked their behavior coupons at the end of the day.  One of them spent 5 minutes talking about which furry friend she was going to bring in while the other talked about how cool it was going to be getting to use the teacher's desk at school tomorrow.  I was glad that I was able to focus my attention on the kids that are always doing what they are supposed to. They so often get swept under the rug when we spend time trying to sort out our challenging students.  I could tell that the ones who got to change their zones up really felt special.  Which was the ultimate goal!

Behavior Coupons

I started this blog so that I could also talk about my truly challenging students.  One of them we will call LC has the whole school stumped.  Nothing seems to work with him. He has not made it through a full day of school in my classroom since the first of November.  He is the poster child for emotionally impaired.  With the RTI process we have to go through so many hoops to prove that there is something off balance with this young man.  I agree with the RTI process on a whole, however when it is clear that something is wrong having to do so many different interventions is just frustrating. 

 We had a meeting on him today.  We are going to try a cool down menu. ( I will post pictures later) He can choose how he wants to take a break when he gets upset or frustrated.  He chose the options. Things like drawing, deep breathing, sitting on a pillow or taking a walk.  We are also going to try a reward chart.  Every 15 minutes he will get a star if he is doing what he is supposed to be doing in the class.  He will get rewarded based on the number of stars he has at mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, and at the end of school. I am not sure how this is going to play out, we will have to wait and see.