Welcome to Season 2, episode 14 of Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers.

I'm your host Angela Watson and I'm here to speak life, encouragement, and truth into the minds and hearts of educators and get you energized

for the week ahead. Today I want to share some strategies for grabbing your

classes attention quickly and getting them refocused. for resources and share your thoughts on the show.

By this point in the school year, many of us have lost the patience and enthusiasm for refocusing

kids in a playful way, and we started following into the trap of just

barking at kids no talking or pleading with them I need quiet reading for

quiet and we do this all day long. But ironically it's more

tiring to keep repeating your request for silence since Nagging kids puts us in a

bad mood and after the hundredth time the kids just tune us out anyway.

You really are better off trying to muster up just a little bit more energy and grabbing

kids attention in a fun and engaging way because then you won't have to repeat

yourself and you won't be derailing the positive momentum of your lesson by

stopping to fuss at kids who are off task.

So here are five types of attention grabbers that I really love using with kids.

My absolute favorite, number one, is music and songs. Music is one of the most fun and

effective ways to get students to stop what they're doing and come together as a

whole group. For the youngest students you can use finger plays, use things like

itsy-bitzy spider and open shut them. But students of any age will respond to simple tunes and

musical callbacks. You can just say

Bum-Bada-Bum-Bum and have the kids call back Bum-Bum. And the great thing about this is that

if the kids are singing they aren't talking.

...