Beloved Rascals: Practice Cards
After a month or so, replace Flight School with Practice Cards, one of our earliest and most successful techniques for improving student behavior. Note our strategy thus far: reward individual improvement with Super Improvers, nourish team growth with the Scoreboard, review the classroom rules until kids are ready for Rule Call Outs. Practice the Wrong and Right way to behave in class, institute short rule rehearsals with Flight School and then longer rehearsals (see below) with Practice Cards. Put up a pocket chart with each student's name. When you see a rule broken, put a White Card in the student's pocket. The student practices the rule gesture for two minutes at recess. Never assign more than two white cards per student per day. Increase the practice time by increments of 10 seconds per week to a maximum of three minutes.
After several months, add Purple Cards when you see a student steadily improving in their rule behavior. A Purple Card cancels a White Card and earns the student a Super Improver Star to give to an improving classmate!