My favorite little classroom management tool is Class Dojo. If you haven't heard of this, SIGN UP NOW!! It's free for now, but I'm not sure that it always will be.
If you're not familiar with it, here's a quick synopsis: You set up different classrooms (I have one for each of my groups) and positive/negative awards that you want, or you can keep the awards it already suggests. Then you begin your class and click on their avatar to award them a point DURING class. I have it pulled up on my Promethean board for them to see, and then my phone acts as a remote.
If a student is off task, I simply click their name on my phone and award a negative point. It makes a sound on the board and shows instantly which child is off task. The sound alone helps to refocus the entire class. It works the same way when awarding positive points.
At the end of each group, I give them Skittles for every positive point they have (I try to keep it at 3 or less so I'm not buying too many Skittles). The kids love it and really work hard to keep their avatar happy! When I was in the regular classroom last year, I would email reports to parents at the end of each week so they could see what their child was earning points for. I would recommend adding comments to explain most negative behaviors, though. And if the parents don't have email addresses, you can print off the behavior report to send home as well. It really is an amazing tool!
