Transitional+Ideas

At the front of the room, Mrs. Medick has a list of the daily schedule. Each activity or segment of the day is its own strip of laminated paper with velcrow on the back. After one activity is completed she settles down the class and asks one student to come to the board, take off the strip of paper for whatever activity the class completed and then gets the class to read aloud what the next activity is. This works well because it allows time for students to return from their centers and switch books or whatever else they need to do while beginning to focus on what is coming next in the school day.
 * Large Velcrow Schedule**

Before starting a new lesson, Mrs. Baker calls on the students to say two behavioral goals of how the students want the class to act while. For example, a student may say "I want the class to be quiet so I can listen." Then Mrs, Baker will say aloud a goal that she has for the class that relates to the lesson, such as "I want you to learn the punctiation for different types of sentences." This really gets the class focused and in the right mindset to learn.
 * GOALS LIST**

When continuting or building off of a lesson perviously learned or tied to another lesson, Mrs. Baker gets the students to take out a piece of paper and write down 1 to 3 things that they remember from "yesterday" or the previous week. This allows for them to recall information necessary for the upcoming lesson.
 * Yesterday we....**

Another great tool is discussion. She allows the students to partner up, and talk about the previous lesson. Each partner is responsible for saying one thing they remember, and both partners cannot state the same fact.
 * Partner Discussion**

If the class is being too loud and partner discussion is out of the question, Mrs. Baker does an activity where she tells the student to close their eyes and imagine that they are somewhere very peaceful. She then tells them to think in their head (without speaking or writing) of one fact they remember about the lesson for the previous class. Whenever the students remember, they are to raise their hands. Once the whole class has their hands raised, she begins the lesson.
 * Stop and Think**

A lot of times the students get bored/tired sitting in their desks for long periods of time. If this is the case they sing "I like to move it move it" from the movie Madagascar and follow her arm and leg motions. They only do this for about 2 mins, but it is a way for them to release energy and be ready to focus on something else.
 * Kinesthetic Movements**

The students create a Know, Want to Know, And Learned chart as a whole. Then at the end of the lesson, they use the "Learned" section as a ticket to be able to particpate in the next activity
 * Class KWL charts**

If the class is starting a new weekly story on Monday, Mrs. Baker takes the class on a picture walk through the new story. They talk about what they they the pictures mean and try and creat a storyline based solely off of the pictures in the book. Then they will discuss the vocabulary, then dive in to reading the story. It gives the students a litte background knowledge and opens up discussion on things related to what the story could be about.
 * Picture Walks**

Mrs. Medick sets the alarm on her iphone for 15 minutes. The students know that that sound means they will soon be going to the next center. However, they dor not get up and walk their selves as soon as they hear the sound. The quietest student at each center gets to transition to the next center first and so on. This keeps the students quiet and from having too many people moving around at one time.
 * Transitioning from Centers**

"Land/Sea" hallway game. In the school, the floors are tiled. There are lines of blue colored tile on each side of the hallway. The blue line is considered the land and the rest of the grey tiles is considered the sea. If they fall into the "sea" then they must go the front of the line and hold the teacher's hand to keep from "sinking in the sea" this keeps the students in a perfect line, and any students who hae trouble doing this end up walking right beside the teacher holding her hand.
 * Transitioning to Specials**

Sometimes before a new lesson, the students play “Concentration” in pairs, facing each other at arm’s length and taking turns responding. One child stamps twice and says, “Concentration” (both children always clap 3 times after each word or phrase), “No hesitations” (clap 3 times), “Or repeats” (clap 3 times), “I’ll go first” (clap 3 times), “You will follow” (clap 3 times), “Category is” (clap 3 times), “Names of states” [or countries, colors, animals, pets, flowers, fruit, or whatever category the teacher wants the student to focus on.] (clap 3 times). Then the other child could say, “California” (clap 3 times). The first child could say, “Ohio” (clap 3 times) and the game continues until someone is unable to name a different state. Another category is chosen by the winner.
 * Concentration**

Mrs. Hall has a fairly quiet set of jingle bells. When it is time for the students to go back to their desks after working in groups or centers, she shakes the bells. The students raise both hands, close their mouths, and walk back to their desks.
 * Mrs. Hall's Jingle bell**