Cup Management

Hi all!  Today, I have a quick video that shows you an idea that I adapted from one I saw being used during cafeteria duty.  Just change it up a bit, and use the same idea in your classroom when having small group work time! 

Save your voice and allow the students to have a visual reminder of the expectations as well.  Enjoy!

Here is the video:

Transcript for those who prefer to read:

“Hi Everyone, Charity Preston here from the organized classroom blog. I hope everyone’s doing well, having a great week.

Today’s tip has to do a little bit with classroom management. I’ve actually seen this in a cafeteria at a school that I worked at and it worked pretty well for there.

And I thought, you know, I hate whenever I have the kids working in groups in their classroom and they can’t so loud you can’t even hear yourself think.

And then I thought, okay, well a lot of, a lot of teachers use the Yak-ker trackers or whatever. They have lots of different ways that they get them to quiet down.

And I know some other teachers just can’t afford to buy something like that as well.

And why penalize the group that is working quietly and using the appropriate indoor voice with their group as opposed to the group that’s just being completely loud and just being crazy.

So, um, I’m going to adapt something I had from the cafeteria idea into your classroom and it’s really actually very simple.

All you’re going to need our three cups, a red one, yellow one, and a green one.

Super simple, easy to buy. I think I paid $3 for each package of these cups and you can then have enough for each one of your groups in the classroom.

Now you can even get fancy with them, which I didn’t, but you could even write on them and write teammate purple team, however you, whatever your team names are, you could create labels and slap some labels on there as well.

You can even just write on the bottom a, B, c, whatever group it is. Maybe it’s team one. You put the number one of the top of it because I can see certain students switching them out with other tables possibly.

You never know, but if you wanted to label them, you certainly could. It would be super simple to do.

So all you’re going to do is stack your cups. Okay?

You’re going to put these right in the middle of your teams and everybody starts out on green.

As you begin your group activity. If a group is just starting to get kind of loud, just walk over without a word and change their cup to yellow.

So now they know they’re saying they’ve gotten their morning, this one, this is what it is and it’s a visual and it’s sitting right in the middle of the team and they can see it.

And if they still just, you know, can’t seem to pull it together, they go to red and then red means your group time is over with. Get out your paper and pencil, you’re going to do everything individually by yourself silently.

And that’s what that group has to do.

I would hazard a guess to say after a couple times we get in a red, the peer pressure’s going to kick in because not everybody’s going to want to get off the paper and pencil. And once they get to this point, they’re going to say, okay guys, no, seriously, we don’t want to get to red because I hate getting off the paper and pencil and I hate having write everything down, so let’s just chill out. You know, and one person’s getting allowed the other.

Hopefully people in the group will quiet him down and of course you could even go the other way.

Let’s say they’re already on yellow. They could go back to green. If you feel like they’re doing a phenomenal job keeping up with what they need to, they could go right back to green.

It’s certainly up to you as to how the do you want to do it in your own classroom, but it’s a way that you don’t have to raise your voice.

You literally silently walk over and change the cup.

They’re going to see it. It’s a visual. You don’t need to yell. You don’t need to remind them constantly.

Group five how many times we have to go over this quiet down. Use your appropriate voice. They’re sitting right across from you. You don’t need to scream.

You don’t need to say any of that. All you have to do is go over and change the cup when you’ve had it that you’ve had it, period. That’s it. It’s on red. They’re going to paper and pencil. Problem solved at that point.

So that’s kind of a fun idea actually that I got from another place and I have seen it work very well in classrooms and in the cafeteria.

So you certainly if you have cafeteria duty, I know how much fun that is. Uh, Eddie just gets obnoxiously loud, try to go with the tables and, and the team approach there as well.

Um, I just see this being more used in the classroom, uh, adapted over so it could be used both places.

All right. I hope you’ve enjoyed, as always, feel free if you have another great tip that you want to share with us. I know I’ve gotten some in, I’m still working on the videos for those ones.

Then feel free to send me like a nice little email at the organized classroom, blog.com right up at the top toolbar. You’ll see an about contact tab does click out and go to my contact form, fill in something that you would like to see if you have something in particular or if you have a great tip such as this, feel free to share it with the world. And I’ll make sure to throw your name into the video if you’d like.

And, uh, that’s what we have for today, guys. I hope you’ve enjoyed. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

How else could you use this idea in your classroom or school? For a parent night, schoolwide assembly, or signaling when recess is over? Other ideas? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

~Charity