Cues
Color Wheel classroom management is successful if it's implementation includes clear cues, including visual, gestural and verbal. A teacher can put a red, yellow or green circle on the board. A teacher could also make a semaphore (stop light) out of card stock and move a clothespin to touch the color, or the he/she might use the color wheel (see my example above) to indicate the color by moving a clothespin to the color the teacher is enforcing. In any case, be sure the color wheel with appropriate procedures is clearly posted. You might also make a second card stock circle with a third cut out, attach it as a mask to your color wheel with a brass brad, and turn the mask to expose only the color you want.
Clear Procedures
Don't expect children to know what an indoor voice is. Be explicit. Demonstrate. Illustrate what an indoor voice is.
Practice Procedures
At the beginning of the year, or when you introduce the color wheel, spend a good chunk (perhaps as much as a half an hour at the beginning of the day, and another half hour or 15 minute period after lunch) to practice on the first day, and decrease the amount each day. Walk to the board and change the color. Praise the children explicitly and specifically, ("Thanks, Charlie, for putting your spelling book away when I turned the color to yellow. You remembered that our desk should be cleared for the next instructions, when the color is yellow.")
Practicing procedures is a true example of negative reinforcement. Students will remember the procedure so they can avoid slogging through more practice.
Consequences
Begin with clearly established consequences for failure to follow the color wheel. You might make it clear if it takes too much time to change colors, the whole class will go to recess late to practice, or lose valued study or chat time at the end of class in order to practice procedure (for middle school or high school.) Following procedure might be part of a positive classroom reinforcement plan or a token system: People who are ready first get two points, or the group who is ready first goes to lunch first.
This system is very much like one I used when I taught general education second grade. I used a picture of snake I drew on a piece of posterboard (Seymour the Snake says Silence) which I hung on the board by a piece of yarn. When Seymour faced the class, they had to stay in their seats, raise their hand when speaking, and ask permission to leave their seat. When Seymour was turned to the board, they could talk quietly and move around without permission. They also knew that if they were too noisy during independent work, or otherwise inappropriate "Seymour will come out." I only had to start pushing my chair away for the noise level to drop to a hum, and at the end of the year my class hated Seymour but loved me. It was clear, it was successful, and it made teaching easy.
