When I moved to Seattle in 2004, the very first place I began working was as a substitute at the Hilltop Children's Center. I contacted them before I moved from New York, and I spent a few of my first days in Seattle working at this beautiful, Reggio inspired school.
I was thinking about one of my days at Hilltop on Monday when we were getting ready to end choice time. I said we would be done in 5 minutes...then in 2 minutes...then in 1 minute...then I asked the child with the job of bell ringer to "ring the bell". The bell rang, and, like some days, the blocks were kicked over, scarves were shoved onto the hat rack, and buckets and funnels were literally thrown into the water at the sensory table. More of a mess was created then when we were working.
So my thought is this (and I do have a point): Am I stressing them with all of the warnings and creating a clean up time explosion? I have this memory (which may be partially fictional because of my constant awe about how this EVER could have happened) of being at Hilltop during choice time/center time/free play/what have you, and the children took the cue from a piece of music to know when to clean up. It was a classical piece...a teacher turned it on with a few minutes left, and at a certain point in the piece, the children began to clean up and transition into the next activity.
Some children need the verbal warning, especially if transitions are difficult for them. We rest and eat in the classroom, so we need to make floor space and clear off the tables -- clean up has to happen. The verbal warnings and the bell work, but could using the music approach work and keep the room calm?
I found myself shuffling through my iPod on the bus home from work that day, thinking about what music would work. I'm intrigued. Is it a useful tool, or is it a Pavlovian signal?
I just found your website and can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteSheryl
I have seen this done before in Switzerland, the music would start, then gradually get louder. I found it very calming and it worked with most children.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested to know if you found a song, as this is something I would like to try in my Y3/4 class in the next year.
And if you have some time, and any ideas about classroom design, maybe you could have a look at my blog?
I use a clean up song called "Clean-Up Blues" from a CD called Caretunes. It is much more calming than your traditional "clean up, clean up," and it works very well. They know they have to be done cleaning up by the time the song is over and sitting on the carpet so there is some hurrying but not very much haphazard throwing. Just something that works for me.
ReplyDeleteSarah
I'm thinking about the Wilco song "spiders (kidsmoke)" -- its very instrumental and has a key change in ot about 4 minutes in -- I figure thats a nice amount of get ready time. It may be a little hectic. I'll let you know how I'm feeling in a few weeks!
ReplyDeleteafter I visited Hilltop, we started to use music as transition - we use the "rollercoaster" song from Juno as the warning song, and then the next song - a french little tune - is the clean up song.
ReplyDeleteThe problem we reached was that the second song is often not long enough. for next fall, i'm going to find a good LONG classical piece to be the clean up song - and perhaps put it on the ipod twice, to buy the extra time. . .
it does work wonderfully, though! much better than singing "it's clean up time, it's clean up time. . . "