Will your students be watching the World Cup this year? The 2014 FIFA World Cup takes place in Brazil from Thursday, June 12 to Sunday, July 13 with 32 teams competing. The world is abuzz with excitement! Did you know that soccer is the world’s most popular sport? It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries. It even has two different names—it is known as “soccer” in Canada and the US and “football” to the rest of the world.
Classroom Management
Classroom management can be an ongoing challenge at the best of times. When everyone is excited about something shared the world over, it can be even more difficult to keep the peace. At my old school, we used a red card/yellow card management system during the World Cup. This worked very well because it got everyone into the spirit of the games while also reminding everyone that misbehaving wouldn’t be tolerated. (See chart below.)
Yellow Card/Red Card System
Just like during the World Cup (and all soccer games), a yellow card is a “warning” and a red card is a “punishment”. Whenever a student misbehaves, they should get a yellow card. Examples of misbehaving could include speaking their native language in class (if you have an English-only policy), talking to their classmates when they should be paying attention to you, running in the classroom, throwing things, etc. You can choose how many warnings students can get (we used one, but you may want to do two or three for very young children).
If they continue to misbehave after the warning(s), then they get a red card. The red card punishment is up to you. It could include sending the student to the principal’s office, sending a letter home to the parents, getting the student to write an essay, sending them out of the classroom, etc. You could also have different punishments for different numbers of red cards if you’re keeping track for more than just a day. At our school, we started the system over every day, and for a red card, students were sent to the principal’s office where they had to write an essay during the rest of the class.
How-To
You could cut up colored construction paper and physically give them yellow and red cards, or just use the chart below and put a check or an X in the appropriate column. You could print out a new chart each day, or use the same chart for a week or more. We hope this system helps keep your students in line! Download Classroom Management PDF.
Other Soccer (Football) Resources:
