If you are like me and my little ones you know that we work so hard at the beginning of the year on becoming good listeners! We practice and practice sitting on the carpet and I have even started teaching using Erica Bohrer's cute Whole Body Listening posters! Thank you Erica - click picture to grab some for yourself!
They are great visuals and teaching points for getting us all ready for school! Well, after winter break or a bunch of snow days ;) we seem to have forgotten and need some new reinforcements!
About this time last year I was teaching a whole group lesson and after redirecting a bunch of friends several times I just had a spark of inspiration that instead of constantly redirecting some friends I should give some reinforcements to those kids who were always doing a great job. My hope was to inspire the distracted ones to try harder in order to get the "reward." So I walked over to my closet and stuck my head in looking for something to use as a reward and I spotted my container of stuffed animals. I grabbed all my care bears and put them all on my lap (I have 5 or 6 of them). I continued the lesson and didn't even mention the bears - I am sure they thought I was a little crazy for a few minutes!
As soon as I spotted someone who was one of those great whole body listeners, I leaned down and handed them a bear and simply said, "great listening" and kept on teaching. It was awesome and the kids really responded.
This year I made some blue star stuffed animals to go with my behavior chart.
You don't have to drag out your sewing machine like I did because the care bears were just as effective! Give it a try and let me know how you like using them or better yet let me know what little tricks you are using in your room to keep your sweetie pies on track!
