Hello all! First week is over (YAY!!!:haha, and I've got some really sweet kids, but they are EXTREMELY chatty and therefore miss A LOT of directions. Simple things (like take out your red notebook) are taking WAYYYYY too long! I really want to nip it in the bud quickly so we can move into our routines. I've tried lots of different things, but am open to suggestions. Two things that are working against me are small class size (so it's hard to separate and move kids) and 24 (possibly 25 next week) first graders. ANY advice is VERY much appreciated!!!!!!!! :wub:
Here's what you do, you don't move on to the actual lesson or activity until they do exactly what you want them to do. So, if you want them to get their notebooks out in 20 seconds with limited chatter, then you pull out your timer and tell them the directions. If they do it, reward/praise. If they don't, have them put it all away and do it again. And again. And again. Until they can do it. And if need, dip into the recess time to finish up your lesson/activity. They will soon learn that you mean business. And you do this with everything. It may be a hard and feel like you are wasting valuable instruction time, but you aren't. In fact, instructional days are 150 days long. You have 3o days to review and teach procedures and routines. The rest of the year, then, because they are now well trained, is just for instructional lessons and activities.
I've hit on this idea. It really works. Many teachers at my school are doing variations of this for everything! http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/showthread.php?t=150071