Time For A Behavior Change!

After 9 years of using the same behavior management system, I have decided it's time for a change! Since my very first year, my students had a fish that was moved up a fishbowl when an undesirable behavior occurred. The higher up the fish bowl, the more severe the consequence. This system worked for me, but I always felt like it focused on the negative. We've been told more and more that positive reinforcement is better for the students. Over the years I started to incorporate more positive behavior charts around the room like a mystery line walker chain and brownie points (I'll explain those in a future post). I still wasn't happy with my overall behavior management system though. Last year my school developed school wide rules.  We called these our "SHINES": Show respect, Have a positive attitude, I will work hard, Never give up, Everyone cooperates, and Safety counts. Of course, teaching Kindergarten, we had to help our kids understand what each rule meant so we went into it a little more. I will say that I liked having our whole grade level on the same page! It made it easier to know what to say to a student from another class if they were misbehaving. We all changed how we notified parents and tweaked our weakly notes home. I was much happier this year, but it still wasn't enough. 


Then, Pinterest came into my life!!! Who doesn't love it! I noticed a lot of people pinning this clip chart behavior system. So, I thought I would take a look and.....I have decided.......this is the change I've been looking for!!! Now, that is when my OCD really kicked in and I went into clip chart overdrive. I found as much as I could about it. After looking through it all, some stuff I'll use, some I won't, and some I'm adapting for my classroom needs. Here are the most useful sites I found...


This is a link to the e-book written by the creator of the Clip Chart behavior management system Rick Morris. It goes in depth into the program and will answer all your questions about it.


Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge has a great explanation of the program on her blog. She includes a parent explanation letter, a happy postcard for when they reach outstanding, a behavior reflection note for students to fill out, the link I found to the e-book, and so much more!!!

This is the actual chart I decided to go with. It comes from Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten. I printed it from a color printer, put it together, then laminated it twice for durability.

Sunny days in Second Grade talks about the program and offers these title cards and some parent notes. 

Teaching With Love and Laughter does a great job of explaining how she uses the system and she offers a behavior report as well.

First Grade Fanatics talks about it and how to customize clips with ribbons. She also offers a parent note.

The Polka Dot Patch offers a great teacher resource for recording your clip chart behavior:

Frogs and Fairy Tales also offers many great teacher resources like the one below.

There are so many great ideas out there so I thought I would provide you with all the stuff I found so that you too can decide if this is for you. Most of it I found by doing a broad 'clip chart' search in Pinterest and Google images. I recommend doing the same if you are truly interested! Most of my things were found out in blog land so I only have one thing of my own to share. Here is my parent letter (in Google docs) in case you are looking for an idea on how to communicate this system to them. Since I haven't actually used this program in my classroom, I will post an update of how it goes once the school year has begun. I'm hoping I can make the adjustment!!! If you have any suggestions for me please comment below. =)

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