Visual Reminders That Work

We are firm believers in structuring our classroom for success. We spend a lot of time establishing procedures and then giving them visual, auditory and verbal reminders to get us through each day. Here are a few visual (posters), to go along with a few auditory and verbal (chants) reminders that have been working wonders in our classroom this year…

One of our absolute hugest pet peeves is the “No Namer Paper“{shudder}. It’s just so simple…WRITE YOUR NAME ON YOUR PAPER! So, we use this chant when we are getting started on whole group work. We shout, “Name-O” and the class responds by touching their name on their papers and shouting back, “Yes-O“.

One of our second hugest pet peeves is the “No Capital, No Period, No Problem!” problem…But we’ll cut them some slack because they are only 6, have just learned to print neatly, are actually writing pretty bang up sentences right now, and they’re cute! But no matter the level of cuteness, we will never give up trying to get them to use capitals and periods in their sentences! So, when they are writing sentences, we shout, “Chickadee-Check” and they respond back (looking for capitals and periods in their sentence), “Check-Check!” Confession…This one just slipped out in the moment one day and it stuck. They love it!

We promise this post isn’t titled “Our Hugest Pet Peeves”, but one of our third largest pet peeves is the “We’re Not a Line, We’re a Snake!” line. You know, the one where they basically would never pass a DUI test if they were asked to walk the line kinda line? Yep, that one! So, before we head down the halls to walk in line, our class line leader shouts, “Tightrope Ready?” and the kids have to quickly get in the straightest line they can (on the tightrope), slap both hands at their sides and shout back, “OK!” And off we go…

But, not without knowing what’s expected as we walk through our school halls. This poster hangs on the inside of our classroom door and around the halls of school to remind all students how we move through school.

Confession – Our class dismissal time was a wreck…Does that make it a pet peeve? We had kids all over the place and they needed some structure STAT. So, we came up with this acronym for class dismissal time. This has worked wonders in creating a smooth transition leaving the classroom each day. We have this posted on the inside of our door (along with the WALK poster) and nowadays when it’s time to pack up for the day, we simple call table numbers and say, “Bye”. They know exactly what it means and do it! Like all of them. Every time.