The Teaching Palette

How to Survive Kindergarten

Posted on 05. Mar, 2011 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Challenging Students, Clean-up and Transition, Clssrm Mgmt, Conflict Resolution, Off-task Behavior, Organization and Preparation, Positive Reinforcement

Image source: Flickr by Brit

Kindergarten is my toughest class. Some teachers are “naturals” at teaching Kindergarten, but not me. The first time I taught Kindergarten was in my first class of my first teaching job. As it turned out, it was one of “those” classes that come around once or twice in a career. Lucky me.

Here are a few highlights during my first month teaching Kindergarten. . .

• A couple boys thought that they were “puppies” and decided that crawling under the tables and barking would be a good idea just at the very moment the principal walked in the room.
• The “potty train” to the bathroom was getting out of hand until the one day I said – “No more- no one else can go until after class”. Then a child promptly peed right on the floor.
• Another day, I was handed a lovely lock of hair (draw your own conclusions on what happened).

And those are just a FEW of the highlights!

I did survive get through Kindergarten that year, but it has taken several more years to really feel like I can manage a class effectively.  Below I have listed a few suggestions that work for me.

Lesson Ideas. It is hard to teach art without the lesson ideas. Here are a few successful art lessons I have used with my Kindergarten students, along with a list of art ideas from other teachers.

Classroom Management. This will make or break you. I love the post written by Jessica Balsley “Teachers, Forget Your Lesson Plans“. She discusses how important the classroom management details are to implementing a successful art curriculum. The following is a list of strategies I wish I had during my first year teaching Kindergarten.

Preparation

• Create a supply table or counter-top.  Pour the paint, set out the paper, organize materials. Make sure you have enough of everything so that you’re not running around during class trying to replenish supplies.
• Label front of smock with child’s name. Have them wear it to every class until you know their names.
• Don’t bother with seating charts. They forget where they sit.  If you are continuing a project from one class to the next, strategically place artwork from the previous class around the room with name side showing so that you can separate students appropriately. However, sometimes it is necessary provide “learning locations” (aka assigned seats) for few children – just write it down so you’ll remember from class to class.
• Only put on their table the supplies they will need at that very moment – everything else is just candy and causes more problems than it is worth.

Instructional Management

• Smile. You can be a kind, nurturing teacher and still have students meet your expectations.
• Check out the whole brain teaching strategy described in a great guest post by art teacher Katie Jarvis.
• Name on paper. Always make this the first direction before anything else. Check to see that it was actually done (because not all Kindergarteners are capable or even want to write their name) Then move on.
• Get students attention quickly. Try these attention grabbing strategies in art.
• Find things that make kids laugh, it can grab their attention, but don’t be TOO funny (there is a backfire point for everything).
• Before you give any instruction or demonstration, wait until all eyes are on you, bodies are sitting up, nothing is in hands, and all voices are off. Don’t say a word, just wait. It might be 1, 2, or even 4 minutes. It will kill you to wait the first time.  If necessary, give hints to kids quietly that you “wish you could start but you’ll just have to wait”. Wait until everyone is looking, with mouths closed for a full 8 seconds. Wait as long as it takes – it might take months to see real progress, but it WILL happen if you remain consistent!
• Eliminate distractions. If you have the space, pull all the kids together for demonstration or discussion.
• Pace your lessons. Show only a couple of steps and let them try it. Gather the class together again, and show a few more steps. This will not only help all your students feel successful but it also slows down the rushers and buys a bit more time for the slower workers.
• Don’t let a demo or discussion last longer than 10 minutes.  Even if they’re sitting quietly, chances are you’ve lost them.
• SLOW DOWN. Yes, I know sometimes it is impossible – a clay project that has to get finished or one last step in a painting process (occurrences that only art teachers can fully understand). But the beginning of Kindergarten, make sure you build in extra time or alternate your “messy” lessons on one day to “not-so messy” on another. Use those classes that don’t HAVE TO have artwork completed to teach classroom procedures.
• Don’t get mad if students are not following your procedures. Just practice the proper behavior until they get it right.  Complement the children when you see them doing the right thing and let their homeroom teacher know when they do a good job.
• If students are still not following your procedures, walk students back to the outside of their regular classroom and start class over. They hate it. Waste their time now, then you will get more time back later.
• Teach them the “need to know” rule otherwise known as the Tattletale Trauma.
• Potty trains. Rule: One person to the bathroom at a time. No one is allowed to go to bathroom while you are giving instruction. (yes, once in a while if a kid is giving you “the look” and holding himself, that would be a good time to make an exception)
• Transition activities. I have several different puzzles set aside for students to work on as students finish their artwork.  Train them on your expectations for sharing, quiet play, and clean up.  Students who have trouble with these expectations should lose the privilege during that class.
• Absent kids.  If you’re working on a project over two or more class periods, and a child is absent on the first day, grab a piece of paper that the children are creating art on and add the absent student’s name.  The next week, you will see if anyone was absent or not by the blank piece of paper left from the week before.  Group absent kids together to give instructions for catching up at the same time.

Clean up

• Don’t expect your students to remember a list of clean up procedures.  Give them a visual – create your own clean-up map.
• Brushes.  Train the students to drop brushes in the sink or in a soak cup.  As much as you may want to teach them how to clean their own brushes, with limited sink space, it needs to be used for hand cleaning, not brushes.
• If you use sponges, squeeze them out for the students and only give them to children who are sitting at their seat.  The table signals that they are finished by stacking all the sponges.  Peers pressure each other to follow the procedure and it gets the sponges out of the hands of “enthusiastic” cleaners.
• If the room is still a mess, ask the children to each pick up 10 (or 20) scraps off the floor.
• When it is time to line up, send only a few at a time.  You could choose to have students who sit the quietest, clean up most efficiently, or who are most helpful to one another.
• Have students SIT in line. It is harder to bump into someone when they are in one stationary spot.

How do you manage your Kindergarten classes?

Whole Brain Teaching

Posted on 01. Oct, 2009 by Guest Author in All Posts, Challenging Students, Clean-up and Transition, Clssrm Mgmt, Educators in Art, Off-task Behavior, Positive Reinforcement

The following is a guest post written by Katie Jarvis. She has been teaching art for nine years and currently teaches at Cameron Elementary in Alexandria, Virginia.

At the beginning of every year, art teacher’s everywhere make up a “rules poster” to review with students on the first day of classes. Throughout the year I would find that the students would claim to forget or not know the rules. While researching art room rules last year I came across a teacher on Youtube, Chris Biffle, a college professor who taught what he called Whole Brain Teaching.

How does it work? At the beginning of every class the students and I recite the art room rules. The rules have hand motions and each week we change the style in which we say them- squeaky voice, deep voice, sad, happy, fast, cowboy, etc. The kids love it! In fact if I try to skip over doing the rules even my 6th graders complain.

I created a video to illustrate how I teach these rules on the first day of art.  Trouble viewing video below? Click here.

There is also a scoreboard to help with classroom management. I mark “smiley faces” and  ”sad faces” on the board as the class earns them (see monkeys in image on left). When the class earns a smile they get to cheer. When the class earns a sad face everyone groans.  The points are tallied at the end of each class and a gold paintbrush is awarded for more smiles than frowns, a silver paintbrush for an equal number of smiles and frowns, or no brush for more frowns than smiles. Four paintbrushes earn the class a free art day. Each silver brush is worth 1/2 a gold brush (2 silvers = 1 gold)

The most effective tool I’ve learned from Whole Brain Teaching is getting the students attention. When I say “Class” they say “Yes!” I vary the way I say class to keep them on their toes. For example if I say “Classsity, Class” they respond “Yessity, yes!”

Whole Brain Teaching involves lots of hand gestures and verbal responses from students to keep them engaged and entertained. Using WBT creates a “peaceful classroom full of orderly fun”. Students have more fun following my rules, since I switched to Whole Brain Teaching, rather than ignoring them.