Kindergarten Classroom Cheers for a Positive Environment

Inside: Discover how using classroom cheers to recognize positive behavior can build community n your preschool, kindergarten, or first grade classroom.

Three Cheers for Positive Reinforcement

When I was pregnant with my first child, I noticed pregnant women everywhere! Certainly pregnant women were nothing new, but I was tuned-in in a way that I had never been before.

Positivity is like that too! The more you look, the more you’ll find!

While there are lots of ways to reinforce positive behavior, I’m not a fan of many of them.

Mostly because there is often a flip-side to these techniques where something is taken away or witheld when behavior is not-so-positive. There’s a lot of see-sawing and keeping track and I have a hard time being consistent and equitable. Maybe that’s just me!

Class cheers, however, are something I can really rally around! They encourage me to look for the positive and, together with the children, celebrate accomplishments, good deeds, kind words, and more!

They are also just plain fun and the kiddos light up like a Christmas tree when the cheer is for them!

5 Ways to Use Classroom Cheers

There are many ways you can use classroom cheers in your preschool, kindergarten or first grade classroom. Here are a few ideas that you might try:

Opening Circle: Start the day off on a positive note by reciting a classroom cheer together to bring about a feeling of community and set the intention for a great day ahead.
Closing Circle: Invite kids to share their appreciations or gratitude for a positive interaction they encountered that day and then celebrate all those who were mentioned with a classroom cheer.
Weekly Character Strength: If your school has a character ed program that focuses on a specific character trait each week, you might look for children that exhibit that trait and honor them with a classroom cheer at the end of the week.
Special Guests: If you have a guest teacher or parent volunteer come in to assist, send them off with a classroom cheer as a way of saying thank you.
Earned Reward: You might challenge children to meet a certain goal for a behavior you are trying to reinforce such as a clean-up routine or remembering to write names on papers. When the goal is met, reward your kiddos with a class cheer for their team effort.

My Kindergarten Classroom Cheers

The classroom cheers I use are seasonally-themed allowing me to share a new one with kids each month. They begin to anticipate the next month’s rhyme and this “novelty” helps keep interest alive for this type of positive recognition.

These cheers can be used to recognize individual children, partnerships, teams, or even the whole class, while building classroom community and creating a positive learning environment.