Today I focused a lot of my attention on how the teacher kept the children alert and attentive during the lesson. Which techniques did she use to keep the students attention and energy! Incorporating chants, brain breaks and clapping are a huge part of my CT's strategy in keeping the students on task at all times! One chant she uses often is “1, 2, 3 eyes on me.” Then the students reply back, “1, 2 eyes on you.” This lets her know they were done talking and ready to listen. Today was exciting for me because I was able to choose a brain break and do it with the kids while I taught a lesson to the class. It was a science lesson that involved me demonstrating a science experiment about Gravity and they had to record their observations. I noticed that as I was doing the experiment they were getting overly excited about what was going on in the room and not really focusing on the concepts that we wanted. I immediately stopped and said brain break and got all the kids attention again and we did the "roller coaster" brain break. After that they were able to refocus and we continued the lesson with all of the student’s attention! Further into the lesson, I started to lose their attention again so I did a clapping pattern for the students to copy. This is called an attention signal. The kids immediately stopped and copied my pattern. It was exciting for me to reflect on something my CT does and utilize it!
- What are some other chants that I can use to get students attention?
- Can you use brain breaks when the students are starting to get bored as well?