Captivating the attention of a group of young children is no small feat. And it doesn’t matter how big or small the group is (I once had a class of 3 girls who ran circles around me for weeks). If you aren’t keeping things interesting, their minds wander off. It’s age appropriate. Actually, it’s human appropriate.
But there are ways to keep re-engaging your students.
One of my favorite teacher hacks for making classroom magic is doing things incorrectly on purpose. Yep, that’s right. Sometimes I just take something that I’m pretty confident my students know, and I do it wrong.
There are many teaching situations where this can work, but I have the most fun with it when teaching the concept of BODY PARTS.
I’ll say “Ok everyone today we’re learning about BODY PARTS. Does anyone know the name of a BODY PART?” And someone will say KNEES. Then I say “Ok, everyone put your HANDS on your KNEES” and I put my hands on my SHOULDERS. The kids laugh and say “No, those aren’t your KNEES, those are your SHOULDERS!” And I say “Wait a minute… I thought these were my SHOULDERS!” and I put my hands on my FEET. And so on and so on, until we’ve named a whole bunch of BODY PARTS and are all laughing and having fun and ready to move onto another activity, with our minds remembering the names of all the parts we’ll be using for the rest of class and everyone paying attention in case I need some help remembering.
Doing this is great for the dancers because…
It helps them feel smart.
It allows them to be correct.
It reinforces their knowledge without the pressure of quizzing them/putting them on the spot.
It improves knowledge without shaming/correcting/making them feel wrong.
It provides a controlled outlet for getting their sillies out.
And it’s great for you, the teacher, because…
It’s SIMPLE.
You don’t have to put on a puppet show or come up with some elaborate plan to engage/re-engage the class (though if throwing the occasional puppet into class is your jam, by all means do it!)
It actually improves knowledge so even if it gets silly (and it will) it’s productive learning time
It’s fun for everyone!
Do you do things incorrectly on purpose? If so, I’d love to know what you do in the comments below! And if you liked this post, I’d really appreciate it if you shared it with another educator who might find it valuable.