“A child who is in a good mood in a lesson is less likely to misbehave during that lesson.” – Unknown
Transform your classroom:
- Take down tired displays and get some bold, bright 3D displays. Type “classroom displays” into Google Images to get ideas.
- Make your board the center of the room. Put frames or cartoons around it, have a ‘thought for the week’ (see below) on it, hang mobiles near it, have soft toys climbing up one side of it – anything to make it an interesting focal point in a positive way.
Make humor an integral part of your lessons:
- Have a Prop Box – you might label it something like “Caution – Use Only When Students Seem Thoroughly Bored” and dig in it whenever you need a prop for a laugh.
- Thought for the week examples to encourage discussion
- Only boring people get bored.
- If you see someone without a smile, give them yours.
- There are only six weeks between a bad haircut and a good one.
- There are two ways to get to the top of an oak tree – climb up it or sit on an acorn.
- Give real-life relevance to your lessons to make them more appealing – if students can’t see the point in learning a topic, they will soon switch off. They’ll get bored, call out and mess around. For that reason, you need to link the work to their lives in some way.