Okay, so you want to do fun and engaging and active lessons but you are worried about managing it. You know you have the best intentions but it always happens: your students start getting too excited, they start to get louder, they no longer are listening to what your next instructions are, and now someone just spilled the glitter all over the carpet. Crap, the janitor is gonna love ya for that one and you’ll be finding glitter pieces for the next 4 years.
We have all been there, but I truly hate the thought of missing out on some fun because of what could possibly happen. Truth be told, the fun lessons are the most memorable ones.
Here are some tips for managing those active lessons:
With active lessons, have clear expectations
Go over your general rules in your classroom. As a class, talk about some specific rules that could be made for the lesson coming up. Is there a point where students need to get up and move around the classroom for the lesson? What should that look like? What will happen if it gets too loud? As a class, also come up with a consequence. Having a baseline of rules and expectations in your class will help with this!
Have a clear signal
If students are getting too loud, have a clear signal that will alert them of this. I always loved to use a sound level monitor. The visual helped students know when they needed to take it down a notch. Let your students get too noisy and see what it might look like. If you don’t have a monitor, that is totally fine! If you think it is getting too loud, have an audio cue like a clap sequence or a tool such as a doorbell.
Role Play before your active lesson
Let your students be loud and noisy so they can see what those cues might look like! Work on quieting down quickly
Be true to your word
If your consequence is to stop the activity, then stop! Too many times we tend to throw out empty threats and don’t do anything about it. Not only does this undermine your own expectations, but it eventually will teach your students that they can get away with a lot of things. We definitely don’t want that.
Have fun with your students.
The lesson more than likely won’t go 100% smoothly nor will it be perfect. Take the time to have fun with your students. Are they coloring? Sit and color with them for a bit! Are they crawling around searching for their next vocabulary word in the scavenger hunt? Crawl around with them and see who can find it first! Make those connections and enjoy your students. I promise that those connections will last a lifetime!
I hope these tips help with your future lessons. If you need more, make sure to grab my classroom management freebie below!!
