Today I had to teach at a school that is really tiny and was told to teach the 2nd grade and 1st grade classes. Each class has less than 15 students with 1 class per grade level. I love teaching at this school and enjoy every day. Normally I teach 5th and 6th grade kids here but this week they wanted me to try to teach the younger kids. I didn't have much time to prepare as I am rarely at the school and usually my materials are geared toward the older students. But I always have some backup lessons ready to fall back to in case of situations like these.
So I teach the 2nd grade class first today and everything went smoothly. The kids listened well, we sang songs, practiced flash cards and had a really fun time. Another ICT teacher videoed my lesson for some reason. I really thought the class went well. Kids left in high spirits and so did I.
Then I went to the 2nd period class with the 1st graders. Oh man oh man oh man. These kids were little hell cats. It's like someone shot sugar straight into their circulatory systems. They were jacked up and roaring to go. Kids couldn't sit down, couldn't listen, etc.. They were standing on chairs, jumping around, acting silly to the point that I couldn't teach.
So I stopped class for about 5 minutes and gave them a stern talk about following rules, listening, not standing on chairs and so on. The kids listened but I could tell I wasn't getting it through so I pitted them against another school I teach at. Those 1st graders at the other school are well-behaved, proper and good children. The moment I told the hell cats that the other school was better, they quickly straightened up, listened, and followed all rules with vigor.
Sometimes you just have use a little psychology and competition to make kids toe the line. These hell cats turned into kittens in no time and our lesson turned out fun, exciting and great.
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