How to Have Smooth Transitions in Kindergarten ~ Ep. 51

Episode Summary

Sometimes transition time can be a tricky time in Kindergarten. In this episode, I discuss effective strategies for managing transitions in the kindergarten classroom, aiming to transform chaos into calm. We cover the importance of clear, engaging directions and attention-getting phrases to ensure students are ready for change.

In this episode I share:

• The importance of giving directions
• Using different voice tones to grab attention
• Lining up strategies
• Quick tips for transition success

Resources Mentioned:

• Sign up for a 30 minute Coaching session
• Line Up Transition Prompt Cards for Classroom Management
• Kindergarten Classroom Management Strategies & Responding to Misbehaviors
• Classroom management workshop to learn more
• Classroom Management 101

Connect with Zeba:

• Instagram – @kindergartencafe
• Facebook – @kindergartencafe
• Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
• Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe

Read the Transcript

[0:00] Hey teacher friends and welcome. Today we’re going to talk about a key component to strong classroom management, which is managing transitions in kindergarten. They can range from chaos to complete calm, and I want to help you move your way towards the calm side of the spectrum for those transitions. So let’s get started.

[0:21] Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.

[1:14] The first thing about transitions that I want to focus on is giving directions because that is a huge part of having a smooth transition. The first thing that you want to make sure you’re doing in giving directions is not giving directions while people are not paying attention. This can be really hard because if you have like most of the class listening, you want to honor the kids that are listening. But if you have a few kids that are still talking or still doing other things, not only are they not going to know what’s happening, but it’s teaching all the students in your class that they don’t actually have to listen to you when you’re giving a direction because other kids don’t have to, because you’re going to correct them, because you’ll help them, reminding them the directions.

[2:01] No, you don’t want to say it 10,000 times. You don’t want to teach students that it’s okay for you to say it 10,000 times. You want to give your directions once and that’s it. So the first thing that I would do is have a strong attention getter to get everyone’s attention and make sure that you’re consistent with waiting until everyone is listening. I love hands on top, everybody stop, and everyone says everybody stop. And the reason I like this is because it gets the hands of the kids off of whatever they’re working on. If their hands are still on their pencil, on the activity in front of them, on the game, they’re going to be touching it because they’re five and that’s what they do. And then they’re not listening. So you want their hands to be letting go of the objects that they have in front of them and listening to your directions, right? And if that’s not working, say, oops, I don’t think everyone heard me. Let’s try that again.

[2:56] And then do it again. And this time they’ll be like, oh, wait, she was serious. I actually really do have to listen. When you have everyone’s attention, I really suggest using a magic word or words that signals to the kids, I’m done with my directions. And again, it only works if you’re holding kids accountable to not starting your directions until you’ve said your magic word. Because what happens is if we’re giving multiple step directions, kids will hear the first step and start doing that, they’re doing what you said, then they’re not listening to the rest of the directions. And it’s again showing everyone you don’t really need to listen to all the directions. So I like to use the words go ahead as the signal to the kids that I’m done with my directions. Sometimes I’ve seen older classes like doing a magic phrase of the day, a password, something like that, where it changes. And that’s great for older kids, but I think for kindergarten, garden. It really needs to be the same phrase the entire year because they need consistency.

[3:59] So if kids start going ahead with the first step of your direction before you’ve said your magic words, hold them accountable. Say, well, wait, I haven’t said my magic words. Put those hands back. Okay, so step two is blah, blah, blah. And go ahead. Like, make a big deal about it, right? The other strategy that you can have when giving directions is singing your directions. And this This really helps because kids, I’ve said before, kids can tune you out very easily if you’re talking all day long. It becomes the Charlie Brown teacher wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah sound to their heads. So instead, if you want to switch that up and make them not hear wah, wah, wah, wah when you’re talking to them, simply changing up the volume, the speed, the way you say it will help switch them out of that wah, wah, wah, wah to actually hearing you. And the best way, I think, is by singing directions. I like to sing. I have it so that the kids have it like a chant or, you know, repeat after me. So I’ll say something and then they repeat it. And again, if they’re not doing that, I hold them accountable. I say, whoa, I don’t think everyone heard me. Let’s try that again. Because I don’t want them to think it’s ever okay to not listen. So I might say, hands on top. Everybody stop. Burst.

[5:18] Burst. Come to the rug. Come to the rug. Or that probably wouldn’t be first. First, first, push in your chair, push in your chair. Second, second, come to the rug, come to the rug. That like something like that would be like a chanty version. And they’re repeating after me. So I know they’re hearing the directions. I keep it very simple language.

[5:42] So I know everyone’s hearing the directions because they’re repeating it. It’s keeping them engaged, but I’m keeping it simple language and I’m limiting it to just about three steps. I don’t want to do any more than that. I want to make sure everyone really understands what we’re supposed to be doing. Adding in an action is even better, like adding in a hand motion or pointing or whatever is even better because that engages them even more. Sometimes I’ll sing if maybe not the first time I’m giving directions, but like maybe I’m waiting for kids, I’ll just start singing to them as the transition is happening. So let’s say I wanted them to clean up and come to the rug for morning meeting. I might sing while I’m waiting for that, while I’m waiting for everyone. Come to the rug, come to the rug, quietly, quietly.

[6:28] We are doing morning meeting. We are doing morning meeting. Sit in a circle, sit in a circle. And literally, I change the words every time. I change how I say it every time, but I always do it to that tune, to Frere Jacques. I don’t know why. It’s just super easy for me to literally think on the spot of whatever it is I want to say with that tune. But that is just a gentle reminder for the kids what’s expected. You’re not just saying, we have to be coming to the raw, we have to be sitting in a circle over and over and over again. It’s gentle, It’s calming. It’s reminding them of what’s expected. But it also has like a timer to it in a way, like when the song’s over, that’s when you want everyone sitting on the rug and they can kind of join in and they like doing that. Okay. So that was giving direction. So that’s a key part of transitions.

[7:18] Let’s talk about cleanup time a little bit. So it’s really important for all kids that you give time warnings. Giving them a warning when something is about to end is important as like a almost like a trigger warning for kids because some kids have a hard time switching from activity to activity, especially if it’s an activity that they very much enjoy and they’re going to an activity they might not enjoy. So to avoid transitional issues and behavioral issues, just give a generic time warning. Now, keep in mind, when you say five more minutes, or like I do in my class, I sing that, five more minutes, and they say five more minutes, they don’t know what five minutes means.

[8:00] They have somewhat of an idea that it’s not like a lot of time, but they don’t really understand.

[8:06] So if I have kids that have a particularly hard time with transitions, I try to find a visual timer for them to help them understand. Those sand timers from Target Dollar Spot or Dollar Store are perfect for this, but that would be more for an individual student. Those red big timer clocks that you can have with the red hand, I’ve never, mine broke and I never replaced it, but those are a great visual. You can even find them online for visual timers and just it shows kids how much time is left. But now if you do that, you have to actually adhere to that time. And what I like about just saying five more minutes is that it can be like six or seven, depending on what’s happening, right? They don’t really know. But if I did have a kid that particularly struggled with transitions, I would make sure to have that visual and actually adhere to the time warning. The other thing you could do is you could tie your cleanup to that kid finishing something specific. And so sometimes having a more specific task helps them understand the time of the transition. So for example, you might go over to that student and say, okay, so cleanup is coming up soon. Let’s do two more blocks on the structure. Then we can take a picture and then it’s cleanup time.

[9:19] So that’s giving them a specific two more blocks, but it’s also giving them a way to save what they made. So it’s not like we have to, you know, completely forget everything you just made, or we have to clean everything up. Like taking the picture is a a good way to save what they did if you actually have to clean up or if you can save something like say.

[9:39] Then you can put it over on this table and we’ll save it till tomorrow. We’ll put a sign on it or something. When you are having everyone clean up, you want to make it clear to students that we are a classroom community and we first clean up our area that we’re working in, but then we go and help other areas. So you want to say, you want to be calling out the kids who are helping clean up the right way. So you want to be saying, oh, wow, okay, we’re cleaning up and I see some kids are cleaning up under the tables. Oh, some kids are remembering to push in their chairs. Amazing.

[10:12] Wow. Oh, thank you so much, you know, so-and-so, because you went and you helped another area you weren’t even playing at, and you helped them out. That was so helpful. Or if you notice an area struggling, like, oh, the Lego table needs a lot of help. Who can go help the Lego table? Oh, amazing. Thank you all so much, right? It’s a team effort. That’s part of the class promises that you made. So everyone helps. That’s the expectation. Going back to students that particularly struggle with transition, some other quick strategies that might help. And this is where knowing your student really helps. And until you know them well, just trying out different strategies and seeing what works best is the way to figure out which strategy to try. I wouldn’t try them all at once. I would try a couple and then see what works and what doesn’t work. So So definitely being consistent for the student is important. Being consistent with if you say there’s five minutes left, then there’s five minutes left. Having a schedule, a visual schedule posted is really important so that they know what’s coming up next.

[11:11] Using language like first, then is really important and keeping it very, very simple. So if they’re not wanting to clean up, first clean up, then rug. Drug now if they’re really having a having trouble with something you want to pair the first which is something they don’t want to do with something that they do want to do so like first clean up then break maybe that’s a break that they’ve earned so that’s for specific children that might need extra support with the transition and they also might need a more specific visual schedule in front of them that maybe is not the whole day because that can be overwhelming if they’re really having a hard time with these transitions but maybe just has the next couple activities. And maybe even it’s more specific than reading. Maybe it’s rug, table books, break. And maybe there’s a time limit. Like maybe you’re only expecting them to read for five minutes and then they get their break. We can talk more about like individual behavior challenges later, but those are just some quick strategies for helping kids with transitions.

[12:10] And finally, I want to just touch quickly on getting kids to line up in a way to help your transition to smooth out that transition and prevent some chaos in line. The first thing is don’t line everyone up at the same time. That is an immediate risk of pushing, shoving, running, just chaos.

[12:28] So the first thing I would do is if you have someone doing the job of a line leader and a door holder like I do, call those students first and then call kids in different groups to line up. So it’s not everyone at once. So I have colored rows on my rug. So maybe I’ll call a row. Maybe I will call a table. Maybe I will call kids who have sneakers on or are wearing the color pink. Or if I’m doing phonics and we’re learning the letters, maybe I’ll do it by whose name starts with T, whose name starts with F. You can connect it to different academics sometimes. times. But the point is, is to call them in different groups to line up and to switch it up so that it’s not the same kids in the same spots each time. That’s what I like to do. Some people have line spots and that’s great, but I would think of a way to make sure that you are switching it up so kids get to be different spots in line and have different kids in front and behind them. I don’t, I’m not allowed to put stuff on the rug. So I don’t, I find line spots confusing and like, I never remember where kids are supposed to be in line and then the kids remember. And then it’s It’s like they’re telling me where they’re supposed to stand. And I just, it doesn’t work for me. Works for you. Great. Do it. But this is what works for me with having kids line up. And when they line up, as I’ve taught in my procedures and my, you know, first couple of weeks of school, we’ve practiced, they’re supposed to give some space. They’re supposed to have their hands by their side. They’re supposed to be quiet.

[13:52] Now, this doesn’t always happen the first time. So what I have as a job is a caboose. And that person gives me a thumbs up or a thumbs down to say how or thumbs to the side to say how the line is doing. And I’ll say, oh, the caboose has their thumbs to the side because some kids need to turn to the front. Oh, great. Everyone’s looking the right way. Everyone’s quiet. Everyone’s hands are by their side. OK, we’re ready for the hall. Don’t take them into the hall until they’re showing you they can be expected. If they’re talking in line, stop and make sure that they know you’re not going to just keep walking and let them keep talking. Right so you want to hold them accountable to those expectations if you are looking for quick and easy ways to line kids up I do have a transitions pack in my classroom community bundle I’ll put the link in the show notes below but that has quick and easy ways to line kids up as well as fun songs that you can use because as I said I like singing and it helps get the kids focused and less of hearing the wah wah wah so you can check those out if you are looking for something to help with your transitions.

[14:56] Okay, so this was just a very quick how to help smooth out those transitions. If there was a part of this that you want more help with, from giving directions to cleanup time to lining up, let me know. I could dive in further with another podcast episode. Or if you have particular challenges with your own class and your own management style, you can always sign up for a 30-minute coaching call and I can help you walk through your individual problems. I love helping teachers. I love coaching them. So you can sign up on my website at kindergartencafe.org slash coaching. You can learn more about that there. I almost forgot. I feel like I say this every time. The quote of the day. I told the class one minute left and a kid said, is that less than five minutes? So not only is that hilarious, it proves my point that they have no idea what five minutes is. So thank you so much for listening and send me me a message on Instagram. If you are listening, if you listen to the whole thing, use the code word transition so that I know you were listening to this episode. I always love hearing from you and hearing what the podcast means to you. It motivates me to keep going. So thanks so much and we’ll see you in the next episode.

[16:07] Music.

[16:13] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then!