Dani, thank you for taking the time to read your comment. A lot of subscribers email me with a similar response, but I appreciate you putting it here in the comments for others to see and think about. It makes me happy that you have tried some new things and agree that kids do like to work and stay busy. I know I would definitely be misbehaving if I didn’t keep myself booked with work and growth experiences. I hope more teachers will try jumping into their instructional schedule right away because it really does make a huge difference.
So SO MUCH truth to everything in this post! I felt like yelling an AMEN, SISTER! more than one time while reading!
First let me say I wish I knew these simple but critical truths when I first started teaching kindergarten 6 years ago. I've always been a highly structured teacher, but I think I spent - no, I WASTED time in the early weeks thinking I needed to focus on teaching routines and procedures, but I wasn't doing that within the actual routines & content we would be doing most of the year - e.g., not starting stations right away, filling too much time with silly crafts and other fun "projects" instead of getting started with actual content. Kids are ready to work!
THIS that you wrote!... I’m willing to wager that 90 percent of the behavior issues in a kindergarten classroom stem from students not being expected to focus and work hard and not being challenged to do so. Plain and simple, kids are bored.
Yes yes and YES! I found that the sooner we got right to work, the better the classroom ran, especially in the early days.
I also just want to comment on the Listening Body poster and song. PURE GOLD. I used it all year long, and it never lost its effectiveness!
Excellent advice! I teach first grade and everything applies here too. Thank you for giving us permission to be in charge and to create a challenging, calm classroom environment.
Dani, thank you so much for all of this information! It’s very inspiring! I have a follow up questions regarding teaching the children routines. Do you have any suggestions on how to specifically teach routines and transitions. I feel like I need support in that area as well.
Not sure if you’re commenting to me (the author) or Dani (a subscriber who made an excellent comment on this post), but I will respond because I’m not sure Dani will see this. The best way to teach routines and instructions is to 1) carefully think through everything ahead of time and VISUALIZE your students working, learning, transitioning and what will support or hinder their success with this, and 2) jump into your daily schedule immediately and teach routines and transitions within the actual activities. See how I do this on my first day of school video:
I feel horrible; I'm not sure I responded to this yet. A very common problem (different expectations) and a great question. First, I recommend that you not spend your precious energy and patience managing someone else's students. In other words, if the 1/2 students are going to act crazy in the common spaces, then just do your best to ignore it. Save all of your energy for your own students. If possible, change your schedule around so that your students do not have to be using the bathrooms while the older students are in there. (If it's bugging you already, it'll really bug you next year when you see your kindergartners from this year misbehaving after all the hard work you put in). If you can't switch your times up, I recommend having a heart-to-heart with your students about how the other kids act in the hallway and how sad it is to you that their teacher doesn't care how they act and that you want YOUR students to have the best behavior possible so that everyone who sees them in the hall is proud of them. Tell them that when they hear you reminding them to be quiet it's because you love them and want them to be the best kids ever to be the hallway and the bathroom. You could even say, "If I wink at you (or maybe you could do a silent nod), that means, 'Remember! Try to be the best! I love you and want to help you be the best you can be!'" This will cause them to make eye contact with you more, looking for that affirmation. Kindergartners really do want to be good and will take this to heart. About the cousins, you're going to have to just be extra firm about how this is school and not home. They should not be touching each other (other than innocent holding hands and skipping around at recess stuff) or talking to each other in a way that is not appropriate for school. You can just say, "Not at school. That's not allowed here." After you've explained a few times, it'll be time for consequences if they continue. Let me know what you think!
Please don’t feel bad! Thank you for responding when you did. 😊 I appreciate your advice more than you know and I greatly value your input!
On managing the other teacher’s class - I have done my best to have that conversation with my students and they have done fairly well. I am trying to rearrange bathroom times like you suggested, and ignore their behaviors to the best of my ability. I also love, love, LOVE THE special wink or nod idea and look forward to adding that in too!
About the cousins - I do need to step up my game with this. It has been a little bit better as we’ve gone on in the year, but I still feel like I’m nagging. I guess I need to try the 1-2-3 strategy! What consequences would you recommend - moving away? Discussions at recess?
One final question that I’m hoping you’ll have some advice for…I have a little guy who is all over the place this year. He has attended Young 5’s and preschool before that, so school isn’t a new thing to him. He really struggles with sitting and listening during learning times. He also blurts out and gets the rest of the class laughing and off-task. It’s still early in the year, but he can’t handle being at the carpet and not touching everything, making noises, or rolling all around. I say “please stop” and enforce moving away from the group when it gets too distracting. But then at the tables, he climbs on top or grabs for other chairs, lays across chairs, or sprawls across the tabletop. I don’t know if I should just ignore as long as he is not hurting himself or others, or spend time focusing on getting him to sit and listen. I have tried having him stay back and talk with me, and he seems to know what to do, he just can’t yet. He is very impulsive but I don’t feel we are ready for that conversation yet. It’s beginning to influence other students’ behavior and I feel like I’m losing control. I am going to reread these blog posts and your post about teaching Whole Body Listening. But do you have any advice other than what you explain here?
Thank you again for posting these wonderful resources! I hope to be as amazing of a teacher as you one day!!!
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Veronica, i’m glad you found this post and found it helpful. I want you to love teaching and I think that a few of these strategies will resonate with you and hopefully make your work enjoyable next year.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Thank you so much for this very helpful post. I listened to it last year right away when you first published it, and again right before the beginning of the school year. I have used it as a way to prepare for this school year, too! I teach at a very small private school and I only have 10 students in my class. Over half of them are cousins, so they already know each other. We are only on day 3 of school so I know this might be a bit premature, but I'm finding it very difficult to set expectations with them because they are already very comfortable with each other. They have side conversations when I am trying to go over expectations, and they are constantly touching and arguing with each other because they are already familiar. I'm wondering if you have any advice for this.
I have one other teaching partner in my grade who is teaching a combined first and second grade class. They have about 16 students. Another issue we are facing is the fact that she is very lax on classroom management and leaves her students unattended for bathroom breaks or transitions. I would like to have more control and I am used to having more control with my students - using whisper voices in the hallway and bathroom, walking down the hallway, etc. This teacher lets her students move however they want to down the hallway and with very loud voices. The loud voices disturb the preschool classes whose classrooms are right outside the bathrooms and who are trying to rest. The 1/2 students mess around in the bathroom and hallway because they are unmonitored at times. I step in when I can but I don't feel like my intervention is supported by the homeroom teacher. Our after-lunch routine as we prepare for recess (transition from the lunch room by using the bathroom and lining up) is very chaotic. In the past, one class would use the bathroom before our recess and the other class would use it after, but this teacher isn't willing to work with a schedule like that so it continues to be chaotic. Admin isn't in the building 24/7 because we have 2 campuses with preschool-2 in one building and 3-8 in another. What advice do you have for me for establishing control and maintaining it with my students when we are mixed at transitions and recesses? I don't think I can handle a whole school year like this!!!
Dani, thank you for taking the time to read your comment. A lot of subscribers email me with a similar response, but I appreciate you putting it here in the comments for others to see and think about. It makes me happy that you have tried some new things and agree that kids do like to work and stay busy. I know I would definitely be misbehaving if I didn’t keep myself booked with work and growth experiences. I hope more teachers will try jumping into their instructional schedule right away because it really does make a huge difference.
So SO MUCH truth to everything in this post! I felt like yelling an AMEN, SISTER! more than one time while reading!
First let me say I wish I knew these simple but critical truths when I first started teaching kindergarten 6 years ago. I've always been a highly structured teacher, but I think I spent - no, I WASTED time in the early weeks thinking I needed to focus on teaching routines and procedures, but I wasn't doing that within the actual routines & content we would be doing most of the year - e.g., not starting stations right away, filling too much time with silly crafts and other fun "projects" instead of getting started with actual content. Kids are ready to work!
THIS that you wrote!... I’m willing to wager that 90 percent of the behavior issues in a kindergarten classroom stem from students not being expected to focus and work hard and not being challenged to do so. Plain and simple, kids are bored.
Yes yes and YES! I found that the sooner we got right to work, the better the classroom ran, especially in the early days.
I also just want to comment on the Listening Body poster and song. PURE GOLD. I used it all year long, and it never lost its effectiveness!
This was a refreshing read! I needed to hear this since I hear so many opposite viewpoints. Thank you for bringing back common sense and wisdom!!
Excellent advice! I teach first grade and everything applies here too. Thank you for giving us permission to be in charge and to create a challenging, calm classroom environment.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I agree - I used all of these strategies in first grade too.
Great point - I am going to share this post with my 1st grade teacher neighbor. She will 100% agree as well!
Dani, thank you so much for all of this information! It’s very inspiring! I have a follow up questions regarding teaching the children routines. Do you have any suggestions on how to specifically teach routines and transitions. I feel like I need support in that area as well.
Not sure if you’re commenting to me (the author) or Dani (a subscriber who made an excellent comment on this post), but I will respond because I’m not sure Dani will see this. The best way to teach routines and instructions is to 1) carefully think through everything ahead of time and VISUALIZE your students working, learning, transitioning and what will support or hinder their success with this, and 2) jump into your daily schedule immediately and teach routines and transitions within the actual activities. See how I do this on my first day of school video:
https://open.substack.com/pub/busybeekindergarten/p/first-day-of-busy-bee-kindergarten?r=dzflv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you so much! Your video is amazing!
Hi Rose!
I feel horrible; I'm not sure I responded to this yet. A very common problem (different expectations) and a great question. First, I recommend that you not spend your precious energy and patience managing someone else's students. In other words, if the 1/2 students are going to act crazy in the common spaces, then just do your best to ignore it. Save all of your energy for your own students. If possible, change your schedule around so that your students do not have to be using the bathrooms while the older students are in there. (If it's bugging you already, it'll really bug you next year when you see your kindergartners from this year misbehaving after all the hard work you put in). If you can't switch your times up, I recommend having a heart-to-heart with your students about how the other kids act in the hallway and how sad it is to you that their teacher doesn't care how they act and that you want YOUR students to have the best behavior possible so that everyone who sees them in the hall is proud of them. Tell them that when they hear you reminding them to be quiet it's because you love them and want them to be the best kids ever to be the hallway and the bathroom. You could even say, "If I wink at you (or maybe you could do a silent nod), that means, 'Remember! Try to be the best! I love you and want to help you be the best you can be!'" This will cause them to make eye contact with you more, looking for that affirmation. Kindergartners really do want to be good and will take this to heart. About the cousins, you're going to have to just be extra firm about how this is school and not home. They should not be touching each other (other than innocent holding hands and skipping around at recess stuff) or talking to each other in a way that is not appropriate for school. You can just say, "Not at school. That's not allowed here." After you've explained a few times, it'll be time for consequences if they continue. Let me know what you think!
Please don’t feel bad! Thank you for responding when you did. 😊 I appreciate your advice more than you know and I greatly value your input!
On managing the other teacher’s class - I have done my best to have that conversation with my students and they have done fairly well. I am trying to rearrange bathroom times like you suggested, and ignore their behaviors to the best of my ability. I also love, love, LOVE THE special wink or nod idea and look forward to adding that in too!
About the cousins - I do need to step up my game with this. It has been a little bit better as we’ve gone on in the year, but I still feel like I’m nagging. I guess I need to try the 1-2-3 strategy! What consequences would you recommend - moving away? Discussions at recess?
One final question that I’m hoping you’ll have some advice for…I have a little guy who is all over the place this year. He has attended Young 5’s and preschool before that, so school isn’t a new thing to him. He really struggles with sitting and listening during learning times. He also blurts out and gets the rest of the class laughing and off-task. It’s still early in the year, but he can’t handle being at the carpet and not touching everything, making noises, or rolling all around. I say “please stop” and enforce moving away from the group when it gets too distracting. But then at the tables, he climbs on top or grabs for other chairs, lays across chairs, or sprawls across the tabletop. I don’t know if I should just ignore as long as he is not hurting himself or others, or spend time focusing on getting him to sit and listen. I have tried having him stay back and talk with me, and he seems to know what to do, he just can’t yet. He is very impulsive but I don’t feel we are ready for that conversation yet. It’s beginning to influence other students’ behavior and I feel like I’m losing control. I am going to reread these blog posts and your post about teaching Whole Body Listening. But do you have any advice other than what you explain here?
Thank you again for posting these wonderful resources! I hope to be as amazing of a teacher as you one day!!!
Yes! Please email me and ask for it - missbusybeekindergarten@gmail.com - so I can send you the link.
You’re welcome. And thank you for your comment. It makes me so sad to hear about classrooms where the students are running the show.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Veronica, i’m glad you found this post and found it helpful. I want you to love teaching and I think that a few of these strategies will resonate with you and hopefully make your work enjoyable next year.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Thank you for this. I am going into my fourth year teaching kindergarten and everything you said to do is the complete opposite of what I did. I’ve noticed a pattern, and I now see that it is my approach. I will definitely be using these strategies in the upcoming school year. I want to fall in love with my job again.
Hi Randee,
Thank you so much for this very helpful post. I listened to it last year right away when you first published it, and again right before the beginning of the school year. I have used it as a way to prepare for this school year, too! I teach at a very small private school and I only have 10 students in my class. Over half of them are cousins, so they already know each other. We are only on day 3 of school so I know this might be a bit premature, but I'm finding it very difficult to set expectations with them because they are already very comfortable with each other. They have side conversations when I am trying to go over expectations, and they are constantly touching and arguing with each other because they are already familiar. I'm wondering if you have any advice for this.
I have one other teaching partner in my grade who is teaching a combined first and second grade class. They have about 16 students. Another issue we are facing is the fact that she is very lax on classroom management and leaves her students unattended for bathroom breaks or transitions. I would like to have more control and I am used to having more control with my students - using whisper voices in the hallway and bathroom, walking down the hallway, etc. This teacher lets her students move however they want to down the hallway and with very loud voices. The loud voices disturb the preschool classes whose classrooms are right outside the bathrooms and who are trying to rest. The 1/2 students mess around in the bathroom and hallway because they are unmonitored at times. I step in when I can but I don't feel like my intervention is supported by the homeroom teacher. Our after-lunch routine as we prepare for recess (transition from the lunch room by using the bathroom and lining up) is very chaotic. In the past, one class would use the bathroom before our recess and the other class would use it after, but this teacher isn't willing to work with a schedule like that so it continues to be chaotic. Admin isn't in the building 24/7 because we have 2 campuses with preschool-2 in one building and 3-8 in another. What advice do you have for me for establishing control and maintaining it with my students when we are mixed at transitions and recesses? I don't think I can handle a whole school year like this!!!
DO you have a printable version of the Whole Body Listening Chart?