Help from ELEMENTARY school teachers-thread closed by OP

[taeja71]

I posted the below and received some great replies. Thanks to all who have helped and inspired other parents and teachers. Its great to know that if you have a question, that fellow DISers will try and help out. Thanks all.

Elementary school teacher's, I am in need of your help. I'd like to impliment the red dot dicipline system w/ my kids while they are home. I forgot to ask my kids' teachers before Christmas break started....dummy me. So, if you know how the warnings work and what impliments a red dot I'd really appreciate it. If there are any seasoned elemantary schooled parents out there, your help would be appreciated as well.

Happy Holidays all!

 

[Daxx]

I'm a Kdg. teacher and I have never heard of this. I hope someone answers b/c I'd be interested to know.

 

[taeja71]

O.k., this is how my Kindergarden DD explained the red dot rule to me.

There's only one red dot and one green dot next to your name on a board. You either have a green dot day or a red dot day. You start your day off with a green dot. After the kid receives a warning and still does not obey (for the same reason for getting the warning) he/she receives the red dot and a letter gets sent home explaining the red dot (the parent needs to sign and return the letter to the teacher). Then, on the next day, you start again with a green dot.

I asked my kdg. dd the same question earlier today and did not get a clear reply. Now, several hours later, I got a clear answer. I'm rolling my eyes right now.

I thought there were more warnings and more red dots involved before being sent to the principle. Evidently, that is not so. Well, I'll have to come up with another dicipline system or modify my dd's.

Thanks all for your ear. Have a great night all.

 

[kristen821]

My ds school does the green light, yellow light and red light. Green=good yellow=they were warned and did it again red=step after yellow

 

[DisneyArk]

My ds school does the green light, yellow light and red light. Green=good yellow=they were warned and did it again red=step after yellow

My DS's teacher has the same policy. My sons both respond to this system really well. Now I just say you're on yellow and they always start acting better. I don't even setup a consequence for red in advance. They just know that if they get to red then I'll come up with a consequence.

I also randomly give them rewards for staying on green all day.

 

[lbgraves]

Both DD's Kin & DS's 1st G teachers use the 3 warning cards in their classrooms. When I asked DS today what needed to happen to make him behave at home like he does in school, he informed me that if he had to flip a card at home he would behave better. OY! I guess that I am going to be cutting up some colored squares to use.

 

[Daxx]

Oh, this is similar to our bee-havior program. Each classroom has a bee hive and bees. Each student's name is on a bee and it goes on the hive. If you misbehave, your bee comes off the hive and goes onto the board. You get 2 more warnings. If you use your remaining to warnings, then you get a "stinger" (note sent home to parent to sign). If you accumulate 3 stingers in a week, you go to the principal's office.

Then, we have "honey grams". You get honey grams for "exceptional" behavior (sitting nicely, behaving in the hall, cafeteria, being helpful to another student, etc.). Teachers can give out honey grams as they see fit, to anyone they see fit. So, a Kdg. teacher can give an 8th grader a honey gram. Each honey gram goes into a box in the teacher's classroom (homeroom teacher for grades 5-8) and at the end of the month, there's a drawing for prizes from each teacher's box. We usually draw 3 or so names.

We've found that this has improved behavior!!!

 

[taeja71]

Both DD's Kin & DS's 1st G teachers use the 3 warning cards in their classrooms. When I asked DS today what needed to happen to make him behave at home like he does in school, he informed me that if he had to flip a card at home he would behave better. OY! I guess that I am going to be cutting up some colored squares to use.

I had a similar conversation with my kdg. DD about the very same thing! I'm with you, I'll be cutting out cards and making a chart for our home.

 

[pixiemomma]

In Kindergarten the teacher used the green, yellow, red light system. The first grade teacher uses a "flip your strip" system. First flip, they lose recess, second flip a note is sent home. It is amazing how well these behaviour systems seem to work on all types of kids.

 

[RUDisney]

I posted this on another thread a couple of days ago. This is my method of punishment and I find it to be very effective....

Sounds to me like you need a penalty box.

We have punishments in an old cigar box. The kids helped me come up with them and they were nastier about punishments than I would have been. With these punishments, I put in some mercy cards. There are 3 of them, I think. One says that if they are truly sorry for their bad behavior, they can be forgiven. They are always truly sorry when they pull that one, and are old enough to realize that they escaped a potentially bad situation, so they change their behavior. Another one says that they should go to their room, say 3 prayers and they will be forgiven. The third allows them to pay $.50 for forgiveness. Sometimes it's hard when they pull a mercy card and you really want them punished, but you have to honor the mercy card if that's what they get. It helps to make them do the punishment if you stick up to your side of the bargain.

The penalties range from vacuuming all 3 floors of our house, cleaning up after dinner for a week, no TV for the rest of the day (that one is hard when the penalty is pulled early in the day), no computer for a week, go to bed at 8:00 tonight, etc.

I think that this method works better than time outs or sending them to their room because it introduces the fear of the unknown into punishment. All I usually have to do is tell my DS that he will have to pull a penalty out of the box if he doesn't behave and that fear of the unknown allows him to change his behavior.

This has worked for me for the past 18 months. During that time, my DD has only had to pull one penalty and DS has pulled from the box less than 20 times. (Some of the pulls were multiples since he kept being bad after I warned him. When he pulled a mercy card during a multiple pull, I let him get away with only that one card. He still had to perform the other tasks.)

 

[Cindy B]

Oh, this is similar to our bee-havior program. Each classroom has a bee hive and bees. Each student's name is on a bee and it goes on the hive. If you misbehave, your bee comes off the hive and goes onto the board. You get 2 more warnings. If you use your remaining to warnings, then you get a "stinger" (note sent home to parent to sign). If you accumulate 3 stingers in a week, you go to the principal's office.

Then, we have "honey grams". You get honey grams for "exceptional" behavior (sitting nicely, behaving in the hall, cafeteria, being helpful to another student, etc.). Teachers can give out honey grams as they see fit, to anyone they see fit. So, a Kdg. teacher can give an 8th grader a honey gram. Each honey gram goes into a box in the teacher's classroom (homeroom teacher for grades 5-8) and at the end of the month, there's a drawing for prizes from each teacher's box. We usually draw 3 or so names.

We've found that this has improved behavior!!!

This is very cute! I may have to use this when I get my own classroom!

 

[barkley]

interesting-our kids teachers (one teaches k-2, the other 3-8-small school) just tells the child to stop whatever unacceptable behaviour is occuring. if they fail to do so/repeat the behaviour they lose recess time (still go out but do laps around the playground if it's raining laps around the "multipurpose room"), with the older kids they may have to copy (word for word, punctuation included-a page from the dictionary).

the idea is to immediatly correct the inappropriate behaviour (and the kids know it's not appropriate behaviour-they've been told since kindergarten) and make the kids responsible for themselves (no "rewards" for good behaviour-it's the expectation that you respect yourself and others, adults don't get rewards for NOT breaking the law, for NOT completing a work duty on time...).

i KNOW from personal experience this does NOT work with the kids at home, cuz, well THEY'RE KIDS! but i don't think i could handle a system that has me monitoring their behaviour all day-if they're acting up i address it, if they're behaving it's not an issue.

 

[taeja71]

barkley wrote

....the older kids they may have to copy (word for word, punctuation included-a page from the dictionary)....

My 6th grade teacher had this same rule. We had to write out one column from page 100 of the Webster dictonary. The funny thing is, I wrote out copies in advance so that I could allow myself to get in trouble. I just had to turn in my paper and my punishment was over quickly. Looking back, I probably wasted a lot of my free time making spare copies of page 100, but at the time, it was liberating knowing my punishment would be over quickly.

 

[barkley]

barkley wrote

My 6th grade teacher had this same rule. We had to write out one column from page 100 of the Webster dictonary. The funny thing is, I wrote out copies in advance so that I could allow myself to get in trouble. I just had to turn in my paper and my punishment was over quickly. Looking back, I probably wasted a lot of my free time making spare copies of page 100, but at the time, it was liberating knowing my punishment would be over quickly.

ah yes, but our teacher is much sneakier-she finds a word that somehow relates to "the crime" and starts the page from that point so it may be from the middle of page 296 to the middle of 297

 

[taeja71]

ah yes, but our teacher is much sneakier-she finds a word that somehow relates to "the crime" and starts the page from that point so it may be from the middle of page 296 to the middle of 297

I can relate to that too! Once in a while my teacher would switch colums or even pages I think if I were a teacher I'd have the same dicipline of writing from the dictionary. My 6th grade teacher was one of my toughest (during elem. years), but she was my favorite.

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I'm glad this thread has been helpful as well. It's nice to know that if I have a question, you all will try and help a fellow DISer out.

Have a great holiday all!

P.S. Just a final fond thought. I remeber standing up and saying, "Hello, Mr. Principal", when ever he walked in the room. I'm sure the kids these days don't do that any more. (((Just another step down memory lane for me-sorry for the change of subject. I guess I'm entitled to kill my own thread. )))

Take care! Happy New Year to you all as well!