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Choose a grade level and English or Spanish!February 2002
I teach first grade. I find that by the end of Morning Meeting, my students tend to be fidgety and restless, so I’ve been taking them out for recess after meeting and before starting the rest of the day. That seems to help them. They come back in more settled and ready to get to work. My principal, however, has said that this isn’t a productive use of time. What do you think? Do you have any information on what time of day is best for recess?
Caltha Crowe retired in June after 35 years of teaching. Most recently, she taught third graders at King’s Highway Elementary School in Westport, Connecticut. She is a certified Responsive Classroom consulting teacher.
Simple signals for attention—whether visual (a raised hand) or auditory (a chime, rain stick, or other pleasant-sounding instrument)—are an essential classroom management tool.
When I was student teaching, one of my professors said he could tell if a teacher had good management skills by watching whether she could get her students’ attention whenever she needed it. This lesson stuck with me, and once I had my own classroom, the first thing I always modeled was how students should respond to my signals for attention.
