Try This System for Easy Classroom Management
Using these “Class Cards” is a strategy I learned from a seminar with classroom management guru, Rick Morris. While this isn’t a tool specific to art educators, I found it so helpful in a variety of ways that I used it every day, with every class I taught.
“Class Cards” are a simple and inexpensive idea you can easily add to your bag of tricks and see results right away…. nothing I tried worked better to promote total class participation and involvement.
All you do is take a deck of playing cards and write each student’s first and last name on one of the cards with a Sharpie. Then separate your cards by class, and hold them together with a rubber band. Label each stack with the teacher’s initials and grade written on a piece of colored card stock. Then keep the cards for the class you’re teaching in your back pocket so you can quickly pull them out as needed.
There are so many ways you can use “Class Cards” in the Art Room. Simply shuffle the deck and turn over some cards when you need to randomly select students to…
- answer questions
- participate in class discussions
- pass out supplies
- collect supplies
- “volunteer” for an activity
- be a “teacher’s helper”
- form groups
- go to their seats after carpet time (Kindergarten)
- line up after class
Using “Class Cards” with 40+ new Kindergarteners each fall helped me learn these new names in record time. This way I could call on them and instantly put faces with names. Your subs will appreciate it, too!
It was also fun to see how simply taking the cards out of my pocket and starting to shuffle them would get students’ attention, as they anticipated what I might be choosing someone to do!
There’s one more great thing about “Class Cards”… you only have to make a card for each student one time. Just save your cards from year to year, then as students move to a new grade level you simply re-group your last year’s cards into new classes. When students graduate or leave your school, they enjoy getting “their card” as a souvenir of their time with you!
Rick Morris is no longer teaching but has compiled his creative ideas for classroom management into one complete volume called, “The Big Book”. You can also find a long list of helpful Classroom Tips on his website.
Rick’s practical ideas continue to stand the test of time. They made such a difference for me in my classroom as I’m sure they will in yours, no matter what grade or subject you teach.
