Clever Tips in Regaining Your Students' Focus After Recess

Recess, a time for all of us teachers to take a brief breather and recoup after two hours of fiercely teaching and miraculously maintaining our youngster's attention. After fifteen short minutes of classroom silence and bliss your students return cheeks flushed and energy levels at their peak, here comes the true challenge of the day. Recess is amazing for getting our young learners moving around to release energy cooped up during class and to get their brains thinking in a refreshing new and fun way however, it's no secret that after recess maintaining the attention of our students can be incredibly challenging. Here at Primary Innovation we gathered five helpful, clever and affordable tips to bringing your students' focus back on the learning content you plan to teach for the day.

1. Bring students back into the classroom by small groups.

How I have done this in my class room is after a recess break or even lunch, I only let 5-6 students into the classroom at a time directing them to hang up their coats and to go to each of their desks. Often I will have these small groups of kids do a small and easy activity to keep them occupied until the rest of the class enters such as coloring, drawing, reading or practicing their handwriting skills. This prevents a lot of chaos of having 30 kids hanging up their coats and even some conflicts that can occur during this transition. As students are waiting in the hallway have them do some exercises or stretches to keep them preoccupied as well until they are able to go inside. A small activity at their desk to start off with simply refocuses them and brings some calmness to a transition of chaos and high excitement to learning time.

2. Audio and Doodling, yes!

Playing an audio book or even music while kids transition into the classroom after a break is also a great way to calm the emotions of your students. Often times I will dim my classroom lights as well at this time and provide my students some crayons and scratch paper to freely draw or doodle what they are picturing from the audio book or music. Doodling has even been proven to increase concentration and focus while being therapeutic and calming for even your most rambunctious students.

3. Brain Break Games

If you have kids that enjoy a good game, use GoNoodle, a website specializing in fun, quick, and easy brain teaser games to get young students thinking and refocused. The best part is the resources on this website are FREE, yes I repeat FREE! So go check out GoNoodle.com!

4. Reading Time

This will always be on the list as a method to bring your students back to the classroom. Have a novel you read throughout the semester and use one chapter during these transition periods to relax your students, allowing them to daydream some and use their imagination to visualize the chapter being read. Alternatively you can also have them do their own reading in separate cozy areas in the classroom. Whichever method used, reading is always a great method to set a tone in the classroom, dimming the lights can also add to this relaxation time.

5. Do Stretches or even YOGA!

You can do a quick search and find some fun, easy yoga stretches specialized for kids. Use these stretches to teach your students how to calm themselves, be cautious of their breathing and balance. Use this time to direct them to a topic to thoughtfully think about and meditate on. This can be anything but getting your students to stretch and practice breathing to calm themselves is going to be beneficial both in your transitions in elementary school and for the students as they progress into continuously more stressful situations in their academia years.

Hope these tips help calm and refocus your eager students, even the most rambunctious ones!

Have a great Wednesday Teachers!