How to Maintain Classroom Management During the Winter Slump

Winter tends to drag on and on in the classroom…January and February can feel like they have 100 days!  As a result, sometimes school can feel monotonous; behaviors start to creep in because students are tired and bored. In this post, I’m going to share some tips for how to maintain classroom management during this winter slump.

How to Maintain Classroom Management

When we think of the hurdles of classroom management, we often focus on getting it set up at the beginning of the year. However, one of the biggest challenges of classroom management is keeping it going strong over the course of the school year. 

We know how important consistency is for young kindergarten students, but there are seasons of the year when it can be tough to maintain consistent classroom management!  The span of January and February can be one of those challenging seasons in the classroom. Here are five things you can try to keep your classroom running smoothly during this slump:

1. Maintain Consistent Expectations

As the winter weeks seem to drag on and on, it can be easy to let expectations slide a little bit. Everyone is feeling tired and motivation is lacking. It might seem easier to overlook small behaviors when your energy levels are low. However, this is when consistency can save the day! 

Maintaining consistent expectations for behavior can keep your students from slipping into bad habits. Small behaviors add up and it’s important to consistently reinforce positive behavior and address negative behaviors.

2. Target Specific Behavior

What is the best way to address negative behavior during the winter slump? Targeting specific behaviors! It’s much more helpful to identify a specific behavior that you want to try to eliminate instead of just saying you want your students to “stop acting up”.

Are you noticing patterns in the negative or disruptive behavior you’re seeing in the classroom? For example, the winter slump is often when students start to bicker with each other. There is a lot more indoor recess and students are more likely to get on each others’ nerves. The target behavior you might want to address could be the way students speak to each other. This is a small and specific behavior that you can try to eliminate with targeted and consistent effort.

3. Focus on the Positive

Targeting a specific behavior doesn’t mean that you are watching for students to punish when they exhibit that behavior. Instead, you can focus on a related positive behavior that you can try to increase through reward and encouragement. As that positive behavior increases, the related negative behavior will naturally decrease.

In the case of the students who aren’t treating each other very well, you might set a goal for students to use kind words when they speak to others. Instead of watching for students who are being unkind, you can focus on students who are speaking kindly to peers and staff. You can praise and reinforce this positive behavior whenever you see it. (When you’re watching for it, you’ll see it!)

Focusing on the positive can have a huge impact on the overall classroom environment. You can bring an infusion of positivity by focusing on the good things that your students are doing. This burst of positive attention and energy can be a breath of fresh air during the winter slump!

4. Use a Fresh Incentive System

An easy way to focus on positive behavior is to reward students using a whole-class incentive system. It’s helpful to use the same general format throughout the year because students thrive on consistency. However, you can shake things up by using a fresh theme for your classroom reward system. For example, if you use my Build-a-Reward system, you could bring out a build-a-snowman reward system for a fresh theme. 

You might also decide to switch to one of the seasonal cookie rewards instead. The overall premise of the whole class incentive is the same because the students can still see the reward they’re working toward and the behavior they’re trying to demonstrate. The only thing that’s different is that the students will be earning themed cookies to fill a cookie sheet instead of pieces to build a picture. 

Something as simple as changing up the reward system can bring some much-needed novelty to the classroom during the winter months.

5. Embrace the Season

The final tip I want to share to help you maintain classroom management during the winter slump is to embrace the season. Even though the main winter holidays are over, there are still fun days to look forward to celebrating as a class. Using a themed incentive is an easy way to incorporate these winter holidays into your daily routine. 

I think one source of the winter slump is that you go from the jam-packed holiday season to a wide open learning routine. The pace of the classroom slows dramatically in January and February, so it’s helpful to add some novelty whenever possible! This could be adding a Valentine’s Day themed incentive to the classroom or celebrating the 100th day of school. No matter what you decide to do, your students will enjoy making some fun kindergarten memories with you this winter.

Printable Classroom Management Tools for the Whole Year

Would you like to have a wide variety of classroom management tools at your fingertips all year long? I have put together a bundle that makes it easy to keep your students invested in your classroom management system throughout the year. This bundle includes all of the tools and reward systems you need to keep your classroom running smoothly, even during the winter slump! 

If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this bundle, you can find it in the Teaching Exceptional Kinders shop or in my TPT store.

Save These Tips for How to Maintain Classroom Management

Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite classroom management board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these ideas and resources when you feel stuck in a winter slump.