Guest Posted December 30, 2008 Posted December 30, 2008 Im a english nursery teacher with an assistant in a large international school in spain, i teach a class of 26 children and the noise level gets very loud at times, as you can imagine! im looking for ideas to get the attention of the children without having to raise my voice or having to blow my whistle, which i do have to do in emergencies! i do flick the light switch off and back on, and ive started slapping my knees until they all start to join in, leading up to fingers on lips!! i just wondered if anyone had any other ideas that may help? Quote
Cait Posted December 30, 2008 Posted December 30, 2008 get them to listen - when you have them on the mat - a quiet instruction so that you will stand with your hand up, and whenever a child sees you, they must stop what they are doing and put their hand up too, ripple effect across the room as they all realise things have gone quiet. We do it with Brownies and Guides! Quote
Susan Posted December 30, 2008 Posted December 30, 2008 We clap our hands and the children clap back. Other techniques I have used are to silently start doing actions which the children follow. Sing or say a rhyme may be a good starting point for little ones, they join in. Whatever you decide to do you must explain to the children before hand and practise it and then may be practise at times when they are not being too noisy so that you can offer lots of praise. Be consistent! Quote
Guest Posted December 30, 2008 Posted December 30, 2008 I raise my hand, and as the children notice everyone does and all is quiet! Interesting to see how they tell each other if they haven't noticed. jackie. Quote
Guest Posted December 31, 2008 Posted December 31, 2008 We also raise our hands and say can everyone show their hands, once children copy and the noise levels drop everyone stops and shows their hands.It is usually a quick stop .ours is a early years unit with 60 children and they all stop. It is surprising how quickly the new younger children pick this up Quote
Guest MaryEMac Posted December 31, 2008 Posted December 31, 2008 If the children are getting very loud then I ring a bell very quietly, getting louder until they have stopped talking. I find that this works very well. Mary Quote
alechunter Posted December 31, 2008 Posted December 31, 2008 We call out "Show Five" and every child has to stop what they are doing and also show five by putting their one hand in the air. We also have a "home-made" card traffic light which we change the colour of as the noise level gets louder i.e. red for very loud, amber for slightly loud and green for quiet. Hope this helps. Quote
Guest Posted December 31, 2008 Posted December 31, 2008 hi all thanks for those tips, can i add that these children are only just learning english!! so they are still speaking spanish to each other 'loudly' at all times, its amazing how they understand what im saying and how they follow english instructions so well? some of these children even have 3 languages going on, spanish, english and their mother tongue, its amazing how they learn so quickly, it puts us to shame!!! thanks again to you all. Quote
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