Kindergarten Teachers please come in.......

This is my first year teaching kindergarten (I'm moving down from the 5th grade) and i am scared to death of the first day. I'm nervous about the criers.......So any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, what will you be doing the first day and can you please share your behavior plan with me? What have you found works best....TIA

Message edited 9/2/2006 10:32:57 PM.

Re: Kindergarten Teachers please come in.......

The first day usually is all about routine....it takes them FOREVER to do stuff. Just putting away things takes a long time. The criers...really you just have to tell them it will be ok and then ignore them - sounds mean but feeding into it just prolongs it. Usually when they see that everyone else is ok they calm down. Moving down from 5th - wow! Good luck!!!!


ETA: LAst year I used a green, yellow, red card system with frogs. They all started out with a green frog, after a few warnings it got turned to yellow - then red if need be. At the end of the day the kids with green and yellow frogs got stickers on their sticker charts - after 5 stickers they got to choose a prize from the prize box. This seemed to work well for me. Also, for whole class behavior, (like hallway behavior and specials) I used marbles in a jar - when the entire class did well, they got marbles in a jar (usually 1-3) when the jar filled up, the class got a special snack provided by me, and they got to sit wherever they wanted at snack time. When they weren't behaving, marbles could be taken out of the jar. HTH!

Message edited 9/4/2006 9:34:10 AM.