Giving Time

So, sometimes with the older grades and maybe the younger grades, the kids just love to be social and have opportunities to talk with each other. When I was in my first placement in a 5th and 6th grade split, the kids would often have days where they just wanted to talk. It would make my lessons not go very well and take a lot longer to get through instruction time. My cooperating teacher had one very effective way to keep the kids engaged so that the she could keep the pace of the lesson and get through everything in time. She would use her regular little timer and announce to the class that she needs 15 minutes from them to get through some instruction. She would explain that this 15 minutes could take only 15 minutes or it could take a whole hour. It was up to the kids on how they decided to behave during instruction. Every time the kids would start a side conversation or get off task from the instruction, she would pause the timer and make sure all could see she paused it and then continue as if nothing happened. The kids would notice and remind each other to listen and stay on task and shortly, they would all be listening and participating again. She would then start the time again. If the kids made it until the entire 15 minutes on the timer were up, they earned 2-3 minutes of free talk time. For some reason, the kids loved working for free talk time. This helped me with getting through lessons in the time I had planned for the lesson. It also helped keep me on pace so that I wouldn't take too long on one concept.