A few effective ways to grab students’ attention when you want to bring them back from individual practise (which I call “bubble time”) or small group work.
These ‘attention grabbers’ should have an expectation of immediate echo or response from the students.
It’s best if the whole school uses the same ‘attention grabbers’, but if that’s not the case, choose some that may be in use or use one of these strategies.
The key is to ensure you begin training your students from the very first lesson in all things behaviour management:
1. Rhythm echo
2. OO-oo-oo echo – only to be initiated by the teacher!!
3. Waterfall – whoosh
4. 123 eyes on me – 1, 2 eyes on you – Use in Prep – Year 1
5. Countdown to silence waiting for students to put their hand up in the air to show they are listening – 5,4,3,2,1
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Hi colleagues. This is especially useful for any new grads out there. How to get your students’
attention when you’re coming back together as a class after some independent or group work. The key is to ensure that you do this from the very first lesson and then implement it in each lesson subsequently so that they are well trained. So, I’ve got five to suggest and you may have heard others in other rooms around the school that you’re working in and it’s really good if the students are familiar with them as well. But you actually have to have commitment to the expectation that they will comply with your request. So you don’t just go,
you actually have to have a deliberate expectation and it’s all about the eyebrows again and you’ll wait for compliance and then you can move on with the lesson. So, a rhythm echo we use a four beat rhythm pattern in that sense and don’t finish on a titi. So titi ta titi ta is great or titi titi titi ta
just so that the echo is easier than ending on something faster. Secondly, you could do the and this is a great way of getting across any noisy activity where there might be percussion instruments being used etc or body percussion. And the idea is that the students echo once and it’s only ever to be initiated by the teacher. And you’ve got to really enforce that otherwise there’ll be echoes going off all over the shop and students will think it’s a great lot of fun. So really enforce that as well. The
other one that some of my uni students have come up with is the waterfall. Sh. So, I’ve never used that in a class, but if some of your teachers do it in school, they could. So, it’s a a more gentle way. The students are not going to hear that over the ruckus of a group practice session where they’re in small groups with instruments and body percussion, etc. But it might be a calm way of doing it after doing a written activity, etc. For the little ones, 1 2 3, eyes on me. and the kids go one, two, eyes on you. Evoking a response is a really great way of encouraging students to come back and comply with your request to get together again. And of course, just a hand up and five, four, 3, two, one. So that’s more of a visual thing. So someone in the group would be able to see, oh, Mrs. Friend’s got her hand up, etc. Okay. But remember that you have to expect and have that facial expression that you expect each person to comply immediately. Okay. Happy teaching.
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Ep 42 – Favourite Melodic Game – Solfa Knockout Pt 2
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Ep 41 – Favourite Melodic Game – Solfa Knockout Pt 1
One of my students’ most favourite games and mine too….you’ll see why! A superb game to confirm and develop aural skills using solfege hand-signs. Start with a song using the
Ep 40 – Student Attention Grabbers
A few effective ways to grab students’ attention when you want to bring them back from individual practise (which I call “bubble time”) or small group work. These ‘attention grabbers’
