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Thursday, October 19, 2017

Transitions: Minute to Win It Style!

Hey everyone!

I feel like I've neglected my blog...it's been just over 2 months since my last post - what what?!?!  Well, life happened!  School got settled down, but my personal life went on a roller coaster so no ideas were flowing and my little ole' blog just got ignored!

But, I'm popping over really quick today to share an idea for classroom transitions that may just help you if your kids take FOREVER to transition.

Back in August, my kiddos would take anywhere from 5 to 9 minutes on most days to clean up from Reader's Workshop and it was eating into our lunch time (pun not intended!).  So, I started timing them and they couldn't see or hear the clock, so that didn't work.

Then, I had the issue of transitioning during Reader's Workshop taking forever too - they'd walk around getting their mess together for 3-4 minutes and they were losing time and distracting the entire classroom in the process.

Then, pops up this wonderful idea on Instagram - and I can't for the life of me remember who posted it to give credit for this marvelous idea!

But - it worked!  The beat of the music and the thrill of trying to beat the timer has made transitions so much faster and smoother.  They aren't perfect and always in their seat when the timer goes off...but it is A LOT better and most are ready when the timer is done!

All I do is play this timer!

The beat and intensity of the pace in the music gets my kids up and moving and actually on a mission.  Before they had no sense of urgency - not anymore!  They hear "the game begins in 3...2...1" and they are off to the next thing.
During Reader's Workshop, I play it for the one minute.  I was hesitant to use it during Reader's Workshop because I wanted a quiet and smooth transition - but I'll take the 60 seconds of somewhat chaos over the 3-4 minutes of talking and lingering around wondering what to do.

When we are cleaning up, I play it twice so they have 2 minutes to clean up their things from Reader's Workshop, get their lunch, and get to their seat.  I do the same thing at the end of Math Workshop.
I actually have this video bookmarked on my computer so I can easily pull it up and keep it up for the day whenever I need it.
Try it for yourself and I hope it'll work for you and your kiddos!
Happy Friday Eve!

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