Oh boy....so...this is a lonnnnng story, but essentially I don't teach 2nd grade anymore. I have been moved to 3rd grade at an entirely different school starting Monday. I think I need help prioritizing. My new room has been stripped by the teacher I'm replacing and the principal says these kids have been off the chain for 3 weeks now. Can you offer some tips at how to teach routines and procedures, establish community, and build trust while also getting in as much curriculum as I can? She says she understands that I can't just dive right in, but I am also supposed to be as sensitive as possible to the fact that this will be week 4 and not week 1. What should I do?! :help:
I would involve the kids as much as possible. I would start on Monday with content, and sprinkle your rules and procedures throughout. Don't treat it as if it is the beginning of school. I would be business as usual, but steal 5 or 10 minutes here and there to talk about how it's going to be.
I would spend at least part of Monday morning going over routines and getting to know your new students. You have to set the expectation that it is a new start. You also have to let them know that you care about them and are going to be their teacher for the rest of the year. Regardless of the reason you are being moved to their class, they may feel like they were "left" by the old teacher on purpose.
Oh, they know! They'll tell you they ran the first teacher out. I need to have seriously clear expectations. I feel good about my rules and rewards, but I am stuck a little on my consequences. I'm using the color system, and if you land on a certain color you lose recess. However, we have recess before noon. What am I supposed to do if someone acts up in the afternoon when recess has already happened? Should I have that color mean 2 things? *sigh*
I was transferred to a new school in November several years ago even if it is a great group of kids it is challenging. I would be trying to use different consequences more specific for the action of the child. I would start with the training for the routine. Even though you are coming in late in the year unless you want them to be testing continually you have no choice. You can teach the current text but you still need to set the guidelines. Even if the room has been stripped, go slowly in redecorating and changing things around. I she has a routine in place follow that routine for the first several weeks slowly change it.
I feel your pain on this one! Last year, I had to switch, not grade levels, but rooms and classes and kids, at the beginning of week 4. It was strange! But we managed. I think you do need to be clear in your expectations, even though you need to acknowledge that it's a difficult situation all around
I don't take recess because I have never felt it was effective. In my room, the 1st offense is a warning, 2nd is teacher choice (usually a time out, loss of privilege, etc.), 3rd is a behavior log (they have to write what they were doing, what they should have been doing, and what they are going to do in the future), 4th office. Students HATE behavior logs. This year, I haven't had anybody get past warning (I think they don't know what to expect of teacher choice yet!). Try to find an effective consequence for your group. You can always hold them in from recess the next day if they act up in the afternoon. Whatever you decide, always follow through and be consistent.
Well, I got the privilege of meeting them individually today for 2-3 minutes each. We had a discussion of what a student looked like versus a scholar and how I expect scholars in my room. I think it's gonna be challenging, but okay. They seemed to respond well to me noticing them doing the right things when I observed, but I did a lot of barking at them as well. One kid said "I can't wait until you're our teacher on Monday!" I'm just not smiling at all. It's working well so far!
The most important thing you can do for these children and yourself is to make the establishment of routines and procedures your number one priority. Curriculum has to take a back seat to this. If you do it the other way around, you risk not being able to get the curriuculum across to your students for the rest of the year, because you didn't train them right from the beginning. I see this happening at my school. Here we are pressured to start in with curriculum from day one. Many other teachers on my floor are way ahead of me in the academic lessons. But my students are way ahead of the others when it comes to knowing routines and procedures. While we will catch up on the academics, the other classes will be hard pressed to catch up on routines and procedures. It was only day 4 today, and already many classes are exhibiting chaotic behavior. Not mine. My babies have it down. :thumb:
