Below you will see a list of 20 different classroom management strategies that are a good mix of preventative and reactive strategies. I hope you enjoy them and get some ideas for your own classroom!

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1. Be organized. Disorganization leads to lulls in your class which lead to kids getting bored and misbehaving. Plan your lessons well, have your supplies ready, and be as organized as possible. Think right now about what items you seem to be constantly displacing and figure out a system to help you keep track of them. 

2. Deal with problems while they are still small. Don’t wait to deal with issues until they are big. Instead, address every small issue that comes up in your class. Dealing with them while they are small will help to keep them from growing into bigger, more overwhelming problems. 

3. Keep your students engaged. The more engaged your students are in learning, the less they will cause problems. Let your passion for teaching show and make your subject come alive.

4. Proximity is your best friend. Move around your classroom while you teach so that you can give a gentle tap on a student's shoulder if you see them doing something wrong. Or, if you want to prevent them from doing something bad, float around so that students are aware you can see everything they are doing.

5. "Withitness." Similar to using proximity, being "with it" can seriously prevent your students from misbehaving. This means not turning your back on your class if you do not have to, pacing your lessons so that students do not finish their work too early and create distractions, being alert to signals that your students may be giving you, etc.

6. Require students to clear their desks. Require students to only have out on their desks what they need for the current activity. Everything else must be put away or on the floor. When their desks are mostly clear, you can easily see exactly what they are doing, and it makes it much harder for them to be off-task. 

7. Maintain eye contact with your students. Keeping eye contact with your students lets them know that you are aware of them and discourages them from misbehaving.

8. Try not to allow students to congregate around you while asking for help. Instead, try letting them write their name on the board so you can get to them in order, or you can enact the "Three Before Me" rule where students have to ask three of their peers for help before coming to you.

9. Over-plan. It is better to over-plan than under-plan. Over-planning allows you to have some activities in place for those students who finish their classwork quickly. Having centers with review games of sight words, addition and subtraction tables, nonsense words, etc. will allow you to keep your students busy and prevent them from causing trouble.

10. Organize your classroom to prevent destruction. When arranging your classroom, think about the areas that students will need easy access to and how often they may need access to those areas. The way you arrange desks is also important for you being able to circulate around the classroom; if they are too close together or their chairs block pathways, then you will not be able to get by them for that proximity strategy.

11. Use non-verbal cues. Using eye contact and perfecting that teacher stare is the best way to stop minor behavioral issues. It is also silent, so you do not publicly embarrass students.

12. Proximity. Though proximity can be preventative, it can also be reactive. By moving towards the side of the room that seems to be distracted, you can usually get students' attention back because they will sense you are watching them or are aware they are misbehaving.

13. Redirect the Behavior. This is a good strategy for when the whole class or a large portion of students seems to be off-task and misbehaving. Saying things like, "I'm assuming that by all this talking I'm hearing, everyone has written five complete sentences with great details about (insert topic)" is a good way to refocus students and also remind them of their assignment.

14. Teacher vs. Student Competition. One of the cooler ideas I have seen regarding classroom management is the idea of competing with students for a prize. A good way to keep track is using tally marks, and if students get a certain amount of tally marks by the end of the week, then they may win a popsicle party at recess or extra time for recess. This is a good incentive for students to behave well, but it is also important that you do not take away tally marks because then that means you are taking away the good behavior that students did to receive a tally mark.

15. Attention Grabbers. A trend in education recently is using attention grabbers to refocus a talkative classroom. Using sayings like the ones on the right are cute and fun ways to get their attention back instead of yelling at them to be quiet.

16. Voice-O-Meter. There are so many tools on the internet that help you with a talkative classroom that tends to get loud. My personal favorites are the apps on the internet that buzz or ring whenever the class reaches a certain decibel or level of noise. This is especially great because it will help save your voice by the end of the day, and you will not have to get side-tracked when working one-on-one with a student or in small groups.

17. The Question Board. This idea is designed to help students become more independent workers, and it lessens the amount of simple questions that your students will ask you like "where do I turn this in when I'm done?" An example of this can be seen to the right!

18. Behavior Reflection Sheet. This idea is great for having students reflect upon their behavior and holding them accountable in the future. It also gives you something physical in the event that you need to contact a parent about a student's behavior. A great template for this can also be seen on the right.

19. Blurt Beans. This is another popular strategy to use when trying to reinforce good behavior in your classroom. The concept is similar to the "Class vs. Teacher Competition" where students have to earn a certain amount of things in order to get a prize. With Blurt Beans, students have to fill a jar to a certain point to obtain their prize, which can be decided as a whole class to give them even more incentive.

20. Behavior Punch Cards. If you know what those restaurant rewards cards are like, then you will know that these are very similar! Each student will have a card with their name on it, and when all shapes have been punched on the card, students can grab something from the prize box (which will consist of things from the $1 spot at Target, the Dollar store itself, or even something like a homework pass).

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