Getting student's attention

Heather Day

I heard this mentioned in class one night, and it is something I use, so I thought I would write about it. When I am trying to get the attention of the class, I will count from 5 down to 1. It always works. As someone mentioned in class, when you start at 1, the students are not always sure what you are counting TO. . . is it 3? is it 5? So, if you start at 5 and go down to 1, they always know how long they have to get settled. If we are cleaning up, I will count from 5 to 1 with more time between the numbers to give them extra time. If I need their attention quickly, I count more rapidly. It even works well if the students are not your regular group, because counting down from 5 is a little more unusual, and these kids will get quiet as they are trying to figure out why they are counting backwards. It's something I have used for 10 years of teaching with a lot of success.