How to Find the Right Behavior Strategies for Kindergarten

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One of the biggest hurdles to a kindergarten classroom running smoothly is student behavior. As kindergarten teachers, it’s essential that our students are supported with developmentally appropriate and effective behavior strategies and tools. But how to you know which ones are the best for your students? In this post, I’m going to share some tips to help you find the right behavior strategies for kindergarten.

How to find the right behavior strategies for kindergarten

Behavior Challenges in Kindergarten

Kindergarten is a very unique grade level when it comes to behavior management. Many of the students in your class are learning how to navigate a classroom setting for the first time. You’ll also have students who will need more support from specialists but haven’t had a chance to go through that evaluation process yet.

Overall, kindergarten can be a melting pot of behavior challenges! This is why it’s so important to find the right behavior strategies for your classroom. This can vary from year to year, so it’s a decision you’ll likely need to make with each group of kindergarteners. Keep reading for some tips to help you identify the behavior strategies that will best support your students.

How to Find the Right Behavior Strategies for Kindergarten

1. Create a Behavior Toolkit

The first step in finding the right behavior strategies for your students is to have a wide variety of strategies to choose from. If you only have one behavior tool available, it will be much more difficult to try fresh strategies with your students and see which one they respond to.

A behavior toolkit can be very helpful in finding the best behavior strategies for your students. This is just a set of different behavior tools that you have on hand in your classroom. A toolkit will give you the chance to try out a variety of tools to see which one is the most effective in your classroom. 

Here are four of the must-haves for a behavior toolkit:

Individual Visual Schedules

First, an individual picture schedule can be a huge help. They can take a bit of time to prep for the first use, but they require minimal prep time after that. A visual schedule is one of the first things a behavior specialist will encourage you to try with a student who’s having a difficult time in the classroom. That’s because they work!

Moving pictures to the done column of a visual schedule

Individual Behavior Charts

A behavior toolkit should have a wide variety of individual behavior charts. These can be sticker cards, coloring charts, token boards, or any other reward system that is used by an individual student. There are many different ways that you can customize individual reward charts for your students! 

Individual Behavior and Sticker Charts

Social Skills Stories

Young kindergarten students often benefit from reading scripts within social skills stories to help them learn about behavior expectations in a developmentally appropriate way. You can have a range of these stories available for different situations that might pop up during the school day.

A social story titled "When I am Upset"

Whole Class Reward Systems

Finally, it’s helpful to have a wide variety of whole class reward systems to choose from. You can have several seasonal options picked out so they’re easy to switch throughout the year. The overall format can remain the same, so your students will know what to expect. However, the simple change in the theme can go a long way in keeping students motivated to make positive choices in the classroom!

Ice cream sundae whole group behavior chart

If you’d like to take a closer look at some of these must-haves, check out this video!

2. Use Data to Inform Your Choices

The next step in choosing the right behavior strategies for your kindergarten students is to use data to inform your choices. Tracking student behavior is one of the most important things you can do to ensure that your behavior management is effective. By identifying the function of behavior, you’ll be able to choose strategies that will best address the negative behavior and encourage positive choices instead. 

A variety of behavior documentation forms

Behavior documentation is also helpful if you have a feeling that a student will require additional support from behavior specialists in the future. One of the first things they will ask for is any behavior documentation that you have. Having documentation on hand will help the team identify the best behavior strategies for the student.

3. If It Doesn’t Work, Save It

My final tip is to help you continue to find the right behavior strategies for your students. If you try a particular reward chart or behavior tool with a student and it’s not as effective as you were hoping, don’t throw it away! You might have a student in the future who would benefit from that exact strategy or tool. 

A token board pasted inside a file folder

As long as the behavior strategy is rooted in best practices, it will be a great addition to your behavior toolkit for future students. You never know what token board or sticker chart is going to resonate with an individual student!

This doesn’t mean you should hold on to a bunch of clip charts because they might work again someday. There are many more effective behavior strategies out there!

Kindergarten Behavior Blueprint

You don’t have to worry about building your own behavior toolkit from scratch! In fact, you can access a complete toolkit within the Kindergarten Behavior Blueprint course. 

Kindergarten behavior blueprint framework - building behavior systems, building positive relationships, building student independence

Inside this self-paced course for kindergarten teachers, you’ll find everything you need to encourage positive behavior in your classroom. The course also includes video lessons that share tips and tricks for using these behavior strategies effectively in your classroom. The Kindergarten Behavior Blueprint focuses on building a strong foundation of behavior management by focusing on systems, relationships, and student independence.

Just click below to access these materials to improve your behavior management while saving yourself a lot of time and money!

Kindergarten Behavior Blueprint

Save These Behavior Strategies for Kindergarten

Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite kindergarten board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these behavior management tips when you’re looking for ways to support the students in your kindergarten classroom.

How to find the right behavior strategies for kindergarten

Amy