Guiding Behavior in the Preschool Classroom – Part 1, The Foundation

Early childhood educators get the wonderful privilege of spending their days with active, imaginative young children.  The work day can be exciting; however, it can be overwhelming for preschool teachers to interact with twenty preschoolers in the early childhood classroom at one time.  Even with the energy and movement in a room full of preschoolers, a talented early childhood educator can use a selection of strategies to guide the behavior of the children in order to have a productive day of learning.
 
Before the teacher ever addresses the behavior of an individual child, he or she should have several foundational principles established in the classroom.
 

• Each classroom needs to have an established schedule.  The schedule is an outline of the events that will happen throughout the day in order.  Sometimes the time period of each event may slightly change, but the order of the events should remain consistent.  These predictable events are meaningful to the young children.  They help put children at ease and allow them to self-soothe, all while meeting the child’s basic needs.  Daily routines create  predictable and less stressful environments for children and improve behavior during classroom hours.

 

• All preschool classrooms need to have duplicates of the most popular toys and materials in order to reduce the amount of fighting over toys throughout the day.  When there are enough materials for every child in the classroom, and each child has an opportunity to play with the favorite classroom toy during the course of the day, the classroom teacher can significantly reduce unnecessary fighting.

 

• Teachers need to make an effort to provide new classroom materials throughout the school year.  Since classroom materials can be so costly, this usually means that teachers must rotate toys off the shelf throughout the school year and bring them back to the classroom after short breaks.  When children do not see classroom materials for a while, they often become interested in the activity again like it was brand new.   When children have access to the same materials every day without change, they frequently become bored.  When children are bored with the classroom toys, they look for other ways to entertain themselves.  Children that are interested in the activities that are available are usually too busy to exhibit negative behaviors.

 

• It is essential that the classroom teachers plan the classroom environment based on the interests of the children.  We typically call this “following the child”.  When children become extremely interested in a certain topic, the teacher should help the children learn more about it.  This devotion to the children’s learning helps the teacher and children develop a stronger relationship, as well as keep the interests of the children focused on the classroom learning.

 
These four strategies are a great starting place for each preschool teacher to guide the behavior of the children in the classroom.