Race to Your Seat!

I hate the paperwork part of my job, but I try to do it right. One task that we all have to do is attendance. My second class is energetic and is slow to find their seats. I take attendance visually and with 45 of them it is difficult when they are wandering. So I end up calling out names over the microphone for them to find their seats. I tend to get annoyed and irritated at how long this seemingly simple task can take.

I found a simple solution last week. Instead of just calling out the same few kids names to find their seats I started announcing:

Who is going to be last to find their seat today? There goes Bill to find his seat. It won’t be him. Sue is going fast to her seat. Looks like it will be between Mary and Martha. Mary takes the lead, but Martha finishes strong and beats her!

It is extremely silly, but it works. Kids that ignored me before run to their seats and everyone cheers people on and claps for the winners/losers. It is fun and actually faster than before. The most important thing is that it makes me laugh instead of making me ornery to start class.

How do you use fun ways to “manage” (I really don’t like that word) your class?

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