Transitions: Orchestrating Change
Transition time between class events is challenging to manage, and empty minutes between activities set the stage for students to jump off task and misbehave. Attention grabbers keep the students with the teacher for those vital seconds or minutes.
Attention Grabbers
Rhythmic hand-claps
Gesture (hand in the air which all the students repeat)
Repetitive phrase (Ready, Set, Stop)
Chant or song (Eyes on Me-Eyes on you)
What worked the best for me was a simple "Freeze" were all the students stopped and put their hands in the air.
We practiced this as a PE lesson at the beginning of the second week and made a game out of it. Then we continued to use it in class as an attention grabbing technique.
It worked awesomely- Is that a word?
In addition I would call out the number of minutes or seconds left in an activity to prepare the students for the next event and allow them to finish what they were doing and clean up their mess.
Between lessons when the class would get gittery, I would have them stretch or play a quick 20 second game of Simon Says. It always ends with hands on mouths and sits up strait. This allows students to bloow off a little steam and refocuses them back at the task of managing self and listening attentively for instructions
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