Gaining Students' Attention

[Unregistered]

Wondering if anybody has any good strategies for gaining students' attention when transitioning between subjects or to quiet the room down?

[Mae]

I have found that the use of a rain stick is very good.A rain stick is a tube-like instrument filled with soft sounding seeds or rice.When inverted, the rice slowly drifts down like rain from top to bottom.It makes a gentle sound which draws attention well.If I did not make myself clear,please answer and I will give more assistance.I never use the count down....not effective.There are other ways.

[Lisa's Hotscakes]

Clap to the tune of "Shave and a Hair Cut." The students must supply the claps for "Two Bits."

Also, do a choral chant (let's all repeat the learning objective together), then repeat it until everyone is focused on your speaking.

[frozen_ice87]

I find that students love to play games. When they get noisy clap your hands in some form of musical rhythm and then say "Simon says look at me" "simon says sit on your chair" then pause a bit and keep going even if you do it to start teaching something like "simon says take out your maths books" and they might grumble but if they don't then they're out. but make it fun so try and trick them but leaving out the simon says bit. and make it that the last person left, if they sit in groups then they get a point contributed to the group which can go towards a special prize for the winners at the end of the term.

if that doesn't work you can always try singing, or do a funny dance!!!! that will definiately get their attention, do the hula! they will laugh but they will definately be interested at what your doing. just do something different to catch at least one person's attention and then they will ask someone "what is the teacher doing" and soon you will have everyone's attention! try it, couldn't hurt :o)

[nona2000]

hi how r u iam really wanna help im a kg 1 teacher in american school in egypt but before i used to teach second grade so i found out that kg is more complicated so in every time i wanna introduce a letter or something new i have to come up with a new game to draw their attention, so if u can help me finding some interesting games which ofcourse related to each letter i present plz tell me as soon as possiable or anthing to draw their attention in this age cause they get bored very quikly

[Unregistered]

I always use transitional periods as another practice time. While I am passing out papers or whatever, I get the kids to count by 2's, 5's, 10's, count backwards, recite their doubles like 4 + 4 =, or sing calendar songs.

As for getting my class quiet, I either do the "give me five" trick and they know it's time to get quiet, or since I have two teams that can get points all week for doing things that I ask, I will say boy/girl game starts 1 2 3, they will get quiet and if someone is talking from one of the teams, the other team gets a point.