Knowing When to Stop: a learning experience

Today, I went to teach my migration and hibernation lesson. I was really excited because I had planned some really fun activities for the children, such as reading, improvisation, choreography and even coloring.

However, I noticed about 5 minutes into my lesson that the students were having a hard time focus, even the students that normally love participating. I kept stopping them while they were dancing or while I was reading because they were talking over me, being disrespectful, or not following instructions. I looked at the time, and we had only gotten through 2 of our activities and we had been going for 40 minutes because we kept having to wait and stop.

I continued on, thinking they were doing better, but some students started hitting each other and yelling, basically just goofing off. I decided to stop the students, pull them close, and tell them that we were done dancing today. I told them about the activities that I had planned and that we weren't going to do. We all talked about how we can do better next week, and then Ms. Latham pulled them in and also talked to them about Respect, and how to avoid this problem again. The students were really sad, but I think that for them, this was the best way to realize the opportunity they had been given and what they were missing out on by misbehaving.

I am anxious to come back next week and see how they behave after this experience.