Welcome to our second blog post in our”Be a Boss at Flexible Seating” Series!
This post is all about your Classroom Management in a Flexible Seating Classroom!
We’ve got some FREEBIES and tips for you in this post!
Questions About Flexible Seating…
“How do you get your students to behave well while they are sitting next to their friends?”
“You’re telling me they really sit on the balls and don’t bounce?”
“Ya right, my students would destroy all of those fun types of seating!”
Sound familiar?
Are some of these your thoughts and questions?
Well, you’re in the right place! We’ve got some tips and tricks for Flexible Seating Classroom Management!
Behavior Management in Flexible Seating
We have found that the answer to Classroom Management in the Flexible Seating Classroom is through a Classroom Economy System! The Flexible Seating Classroom is made for a Classroom Economy System! In our classroom, we use “Brazeal Bucks” and “Devlin Dollars” to encourage positive behaviors in our rooms. Take a look below at the Behavior Management System that we use in our classroom.
Deposits and Debits for the Flexible Seating Classroom
This classroom management system of Deposits and Debits is ideal to encourage students to behave properly in the Flexible Seating Classroom. Students are assigned jobs in our classrooms. The jobs that they have help to create a sense of ownership for their classroom. The biggest hurdle for students to jump over is to view the entire room as their responsibility, not just their seat for the day. Once students grasp this, the Flexible Seating Classroom is more likely to succeed.
A Closer Look at Targeted Behaviors
Clean Zones
Clean Zones are necessary to keep items from spilling over into other students’ “work bubbles,” since work spaces are less defined than the traditional desk. No one wants to be tripping over supplies all day long! One tip that we have is for students to always have one nice and neat pile with their supplies. All other items are stored outside, including jackets when they aren’t using them!
Talking to Neighbor
The Talking to the Neighbor offense is hit with a fine of $20 AND the action of moving zones! If you put a fine talking, your problems will be reduced significantly! The act of moving sets the tone for other students in the room also. The loss of seat seems to have the highest impact! Students start to realize that they need to find a “Just Right Seat,” rather than just sit next to their BFF. From our experience, we can tell you that we do have BFFs sitting next to each other every single day and they behave extraordinarily! They quickly realize that they are in control of whether they sit next to each other or not!
Out of Seat
We noticed that in the beginning of the school year, students tend to think that they can get up whenever they want. There’s no desks, right! Freedom! No! Fine them! They will quickly realize that their “zone” is equivalent to a desk.
Inappropriate Use of Seating
You want to keep your seating options, right? It took one deflated ball and a snapped lap desk to figure this one out! When a student uses seating inappropriately in your Flexible Seating Classroom, which they will at some point, you will be shocked at how the other students react. Students are NOT happy with the offender! A popped ball means one less ball for them to use! We highly recommend that you DO NOT replace items that have been destroyed. If you replace the seating, be prepared to keep replacing them! When the seating was damaged, the boy who popped the ball with his pencil brought a new one in THE VERY NEXT DAY without even being asked, along with an apology note to the class. The gasps and looks of disappointment were far more powerful that anything else!
Trip to Backpacks
Trips to the Backpack fine is put in place so that the students are prepared for their day. Students should have all of their supplies for the day in their binder. We keep our backpacks outside, as mentioned in our first blog post. If you missed our first post, Click Here!
Think this system would work for you? Get this list of Deposits and Debits for FREE by clicking the image below! Classroom Management has never been so easy!
Classroom Economy System
If you are interested in implementing a Classroom Economy, we have some fun tips for you! In our classroom, we have two Police Officers and two Bankers. We love theme, so we set them up with some fun accessories! We purchased $$ glasses, blinged-out necklace and aviator glasses from the Dollar Tree. A student brought in the doughnut accessory, so I’m not quite sure where that came from. By the way, when she brought the doughnut in, we never laughed so hard! She totally gets us!!!! We have found that the only way to store/use money in the classroom is by using a cash drawer, which we found on Amazon. We created our money to fit perfectly!
Our Classroom Economy Bundle is completely editable!
Putting Your Students in Charge
We enjoy putting our students in charge whenever it is possible. They should be the ones running the room! Our Police Officers collect fine and our Bankers pass out rewards. We also open our bank every Friday for students to make change, etc… Your students will have counting money MASTERED! This is a life skill that they are getting and they don’t even realize it!
Spending Classroom Money
Many teachers ask, “Ok, so you use classroom money… What do they do with their money?” Great question! Our students get to purchase Reward Coupons once a month. The “store” opens up and the frenzy begins! We charge $100 for a coupon, and they fly off of the shelf! These colorful rewards are ideal for the Flexible Seating Classroom. Want them in your room? Click here to buy them in our TPT store. We love these because most of them don’t cost you a thing and they fit inside baseball card sleeves! So easy!
Flexible Seating Reward Coupons
In the image below, we list some of the ones that work great in the Flexible Seating Classroom. First to Enter means that a students can cut to the front of the line when it isn’t their turn to enter first that day (If you don’t know what we are talking about when we say this, Click Here for this FREEBIE!) Make ’em Move means that if someone is in the seat they want, they can make ’em move! They love this one! Reserved Seating is when a students enters the room and chooses their seat, they can reserve a seat for one of their friends too. Flexible Seating Rewards are so easy and they don’t cost you a thing! Students love them! Another way that our students spend their hard earned money is at Market Day. Market Day is a whole other story, but if you are interested in it,
We strongly recommend Market Day!
Flexible Seating Resources:
Tell parents, students, substitutes and classroom guests all about Flexible Seating without saying a word! Hand them this brochure! Click the image below!
Looking for a way to have students enter the room and choose their seats fairly? Grab this FREEBIE! Click the image below!
Love the chart, but want to customize it to meet the needs of your classroom? Grab this EDITABLE Version! Click the image below!
10 Comments
This is so helpful! Thanks for the resources & great ideas!
I still have concerns about supplies. Do you have textbooks on shelves? What about workbooks, journals, etc? Where are those located with flexible seating? I love your ideas!
Hello, Audrey! Glad to help! Students have book bins for anything they use on a daily basis. Journals are kept in their 3 ring notebook and large textbooks can be kept on shelves. We only have Science textbooks, so those are the only textbooks in our classrooms. Hope this helps!
Thank you for the clarification. I think I will ease my way into this, as we do have several large textbooks.
I was trying to see what you have on the walls of your classroom in your pictures. Also, I’m trying to figure out how I would configure my classroom with flexible seating. I’ve always used a more traditional set-up.
Congratulations on switching to flexible seating! If we can help in any way, just let us know. So glad you found our blog!
Hi! I have a few questions. What is Rent and Utilities? And what do you use the paychecks for?
I’d love to start implementing the system but Id like to have clarification first.
Also, when do you pay students for their “deposits”?
Hello! Thanks for asking! Rent and Utilities is just another way to bring real world math into the classroom. We pay our students for their classroom jobs, just like you get paid at a job. Then, we charge “rent and utilities” just like you would pay your rent/mortgage and utilities for the month. This helps students learn how to budget! As far as paychecks, we aren’t really sure what you’re referring to… please feel free to clarify. We pay students at the beginning of the month for their classroom jobs. We then give deposits and collect debits throughout the day/ all day for positive/ negative behaviors. Our bankers and police officers help with this. We would love to help if you have any more questions! Just ask!
Hi!
I am working on implementing this in my class. I have a few questions: How do your students store their own money? Do you use a manila envelope or have you found something better? Does the police officer decide when to take money, or do you as the teacher? How much money did you copy?
Thank you so much for the amazing ideas!
Alison
Hello! Our students store their money in an envelope in their “safety deposit boxes.” These are just pencil boxes that don’t leave the classroom. This way, we don’t hear that they left their money at home or that they lost it. As teachers, we fine the students. Since we are busy with small groups, etc., we have the police officers make sure the fine is paid. This way, we don’t have to stop what we are doing. They collect the fine. How much money did we print? A lot! We have 34 students. I think we started with 300-400 of each denomination, figured out what we needed more of and went from there.