Need experienced teacher help!

What do you to when transitioning from one activity to another? How do you grab there attention when starting a lesson? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

What age group? For primary age children, I would try PA activities like if your name starts with /p/ please clean up and go to the carpet or whole group sound games to get everyone focused. For intermediate to older children, I like to turn on a timer and everyone has to be in their seats, cleaned up, ready for the next activity by the time the timer goes off. Then, everyone who is ready at the timer's end gets a ticket to enter into the weekly or daily raffle for a free homework or extra computer time, trip to the library, etc..

Hi Nanette... After completing one activity try turning off the lights briefly or using a pleasing bell or tone. I assume that you have little ones. I teach high school special ed. so my kids have less trouble moving from one activity/ lesson to another. I also suggest that you "cue" them verbally prior to the end of one activity & the begining of another. For example " Okay 5 more minutes until we clean up & move on to Math time"... " Clean up time"..." Now let's get ready for our math lesson, Everyone in their seats heads & eyes up here please ". Who's ready for math now...Show me please... Good luck...They'll get the hang of it... Best of health to you... Marianne

It really depends a great deal on the age of the students. However I have found music to be a great motivator for many ages. Pick a particular song you only use for transitions, it should be calm with a steady beat, even something they can sing to while they clean-up and transition. A digital timer works great to, but no matter what you use you have to train them what the sounds and signals mean. vicki c.