Introducing ... Our Behavior Tree!!!

First of all, we have a bird theme … can you tell? J Anyway, we wanted to share the Behavior Tree that we made because we are SOOOOO PROUD!!! And this was a lot of work, let us tell you that!! Now that you’ve seen the amazing-ness of our tree, we’re sure you’re dying to hear the details so here you go:

WHAT IS IT?

A Behavior Tree. Pay attention! Just kidding J It’s part of our individual behavior management system; our version of a behavior clip chart. We had to make it match our theme, of course!

WHAT IS IT FOR?

We will use it to keep track of the children’s positive and negative behavior throughout the day.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Well, we’ll tell you … each child has a bird with their name on it (instead of a clip we jumped in a time machine and got some mounting putty from 1989). Throughout the day the child may move their bird up or down the tree based on their choices and behavior. Usually the teacher directs the child to move their bird, though we will allow other children to suggest that their classmates should move their bird up based on something they observed. Every child begins each day in the neutral spot so they always have a fresh start no matter where they ended the previous day. We also allow children to move their clip up out of the Warning area, but if they are in the Consequence area then they have to have their consequence before they can move back up.

WHAT ARE THE SECTIONS?

Now remember, we matched our bird theme so you can customize it with your own titles. Our sections are:

Eggs-cellent

Birdie Good

Hanging Out (Ready to Learn)

Look Out (Warning)

Grounded (Consequence)

WHAT IS THE AMAZING-NESS YOU PROMISED TO SHARE?

Ok, are you ready? Sit down for this one. We found this idea on Pinterest to have the kids earn stickers for everyday that their clip is on the top of the Behavior Chart (Here's the originator of the idea: http://littlestlearners.blogspot.com/2011/01/best-thing-ever.html). When the kids earn 5 stickers, they get a glitter clip. We LOVED this idea as a simple way to recognize students who are always doing the right thing AND to motivate other students to strive towards the higher reaches of the Behavior Chart (or tree, in our case). But we had to make it match our theme, of course, so we made different color birds the children can earn. They will get a sticker for every day that they are on Eggs-cellent at the end of the day. When they earn 10 stickers, they will move to a different color bird. The hierarchy of birds is shown on the left:

The children will start with the blue bird at the bottom and end with the highest, most awesome gold glitter bird at the top. We are so obsessed with this idea that we almost made ourselves behavior birds just so we could earn the gold glitter birds as well. Yep, we are those teachers.

Sooooo this is our Behavior Tree and our plan. We’re really proud of it. We also have a daily behavior report that connects directly to our Behavior Tree but you’re just goin’ to have to tune in again for that little nugget. Peace!

From the limb,