"I'm bored!" must be the oft repeated phrase of children (after "Are we there yet?"). One way to help children overcome boredom is to help them select activities to do when they have nothing to do.
What I have found to work with my students is to prepare a chart with different activities. The chart I named "Pick a Star". On each star is an activity such as read a book, read the word wall, write in the journal, write a letter to a friend, do a puzzle, write a story. These are appropriate to the classroom for when some students finish early. For the home, you could also include other activities that you would like your children to do such as play outside, play a game with sibling, do some painting, draw a comic/cartoon and so on.
You can see from the chart above what it looks like and also that a few stars are missing (being used). I used blutac to attach the stars to the chart. And yes the background should be blue not green but I ran out of blue. This is pretty basic so you could probably jazz it up a bit more - let your creativity flow...
My students know that when they finish their work they immediately go to the chart, pick a star and get right into it. So when your child says, "I'm bored. There's nothing to do." suggest that s/he picks a star.
Assalamu Alaikum,
ReplyDeleteJazkaAllahu Khair for the above idea. I've been struggling with the same thing in my classroom. I really like your idea. However, there is one above that I see with the above chart. Students will always pick the activity that they are most interested in and which they find most easy. For example, I know most students in my class love to read; therefore, after finishing early, they'll always pick the 'reading book' star.
Any ideas on how to get them to try different activities. Perhaps write the activity on the back of the star so they can't see which one it is?
It is so true that they will only pick the ones they like or the easiest. I have learned that early on as well. That's a very good idea to write the activities on the back. I think this will work nicely, insha Allah.
ReplyDeleteWhat I actually do now is give rewards: the activities that they like or easy to do I only give 1 sticker on their chart while the least liked I give 2 stickers. Masha Allah, now they actually line up to write in the class journal! (2 stickers)