I have this whole hand raising thing down.
For an upcoming issue of The Mailbox magazine Preschool edition, I’m writing a feature on one of those classroom management issues that every teacher of young grades encounters: how do you get youngsters to raise their hands instead of just blurting out their thoughts, answers to questions, or random information that happens to be on their minds? (“Did you know my sister flushed my sock down the toilet and my dad can’t eat cheese?”) Every year when I was teaching, I would have at least one or two youngsters who found the hand-raising concept to be particularly challenging.
So how do you help little ones get this rule? Respond to this blog with a tip or an idea. If I decide to purchase it, you could win a $20 gift certificate and your name and idea will be featured in an upcoming issue of The Mailbox magazine.
Happy Friday, my friends!
Kim
With my group, I have 2 students who are just so excited about everything and have so much to say that they are always calling out my name or trying to tell something that is off the subject. First I try just ignoring them. Then while I ignore them, I raise my hand as a clue. Usually this works, but when it didn’t, I made a little hand out of tagboard and stapled it to a craft stick. I tuck it in my pocket and show it or hand it to the student when they are interupting me or the group discussion. It works better than constant verbal reminders, and I can smile when I hand it to the student and they know that I am ignoring them until they raise their hand and wait their turn to talk. The little hand shows them that I have not forgotten them or not heard them and quietly reminds them to wait and raise their hand.
I have a couple ideas that work well with my kindergarteners! Before asking a question, I put my hand up to model and say, “Raise your hand, not your voice, and tell me ____” and then proceed to ask my question. Of course, there are always those who struggle! When I do have one forget to raise their hand, I gently say, “Oh, I only call on quiet hands” or, “Wow, I LOVE how (insert name here) raised his/her hand!” Usually, some gentle reminders or redirections help. At this age, they are usually so eager to please the teacher!
When I have students that want to call out without raising their hands, I tell them that I can not hear or see them until their hands are raised! This works winders because these are the student s that want to be heard and seen!
Another method that I use is to let the student call out the answr and the I tell them next time maybe you should raise your hand. After saying that u call on a student tht has been patiently waiting with their hand raised, giving them the credit for the right answer. This usually works because my students love to always be the one with the right answer.
I start from the first day. I have the kiddos show me how they can raise their hands and from there we all discuss how and why we raise our hands for a turn to talk. It takes about 3 weeks of always talking about handraising and using reminders but it works. For those days that all the kiddos are over excited and all have something to say. I tell them hold it we are going around the circle and we all get a turn. This works really well I especially use this on Mondays so we all hear about their weekend.
I have exhausted some of the suggestions given. I also have given rewards out to those around them and then said, “Since we’re having trouble remembering to raise our hands, I’ll pick a stick.” I’ll then pick a random popsicle stick with one of the student’s numbers on it.