Keeping your students focused and interested in the topic you are presenting can be very difficult sometimes. That is especially the case when you are teaching kids in elementary school. Therefore, you should consider different approaches that will make your classes more interesting.
Adding a level of entertainment to your class is always a good idea since learning a lot of new things can be challenging and frustrating. Therefore, having a little break and some fun will help the kids to feel more relaxed.
A great example of how you can implement something creative in your class is by starting to use the wheel spinner for different things. You can use it if you are keeping online classes as well. Moreover, choosing people for group projects can be difficult.
Teachers are often faced with decisions that might make them appear biased – like choosing the star pupil to answer questions. The spinner wheel website solves this problem by providing a wheel of names template to add student names to. Here are some of the best ways to use a wheel spinner in the classroom.
1. Organize Groups
There are many benefits of group projects for kids. It will help them to learn how to work together and resolve various challenges. Also, there might be some kids that are not so open and too shy to speak for themselves or share any opinions. Therefore, if you leave the kids to create groups on their own, those who are too shy might be left aside or in groups, they didn’t want.
Also, you will motivate the whole class to have more fun together. The process is quite simple. All you need to do is to assign all names to the wheel and then start spinning until all groups are filled.
2. Select the Next Candidate
Kids might feel that it is unfair if you always choose the select the candidate who will answer some questions by always following the line-up in the book. Therefore, it can be a very interesting approach when you are randomly picking the candidates by using the wheel.
You can do that on your own as well, but it might leave some kids thinking that you still had some hidden reasons for making such a decision. Therefore, keeping it random is the best solution. Also, it will motivate the kids to prepare for some lectures on time.
3. Choosing Topics for Discussion
It can be related to various subjects, following lectures, or something more entertaining. When it comes to the first four grades, it can be an excellent option to add all of these options on the same wheel. Therefore, kids will sometimes have to pay more attention to the classes and lectures, while it can also point to something that they will find more interesting, like game-time, interesting topics, and more.
It might not sound professional and efficient, but forcing kids to learn a lot of new things all the time is not so efficient as well. It will only make them feel nervous and less interested in school. On the other side, the wheel will add that random exciting moment where they don’t know what to expect from the next class. The key is to explain to them that learning is also important in the same way as having fun.
The best thing about this option is that the kids will become more interested in attending your classes. However, you will have to set some clear rules. That is related to the situation when the wheel hit the lesson instead of entertainment.
4. Additional Events and Rewards
Before you choose to award your students with various gifts, be sure to never choose anything that will be too much when compared to most of the prizes. Make these awards different but similar in value. On the other side, you will need a budget for this option, which means that you will have to ask the parents if they are interested in funding such an event.
Moreover, you might need two wheels in this case, so you can select the student, and the award he is getting. You can choose various parameters and requirements for forming this event, such as good behavior, improvements in learning, positive results on exams, and more.
What Are the Benefits of This Option?
First of all, we have to mention that standard classes can become stressful and challenging to kids over time. That will make your classes less efficient since they will stop paying enough attention. Trying with some traditional methods like including penalties and bad grades is not the best idea.
Instead of that, you should use the approach where you will find a way to motivate the kids to spend more time and effort on learning new things. The randomness of this option is making it more exciting, and that might affect the kids to become more interested in your lectures.
The Bottom Line
This is a perfect option to add something more entertaining to your class. However, keep in mind that certain limits must be implemented as well so you can keep the main program. A certain level of entertainment is a great way to help the kids to have a break from challenging lectures.
On the other side, make sure to make it fair to all kids. You might make a huge mistake if you add some award that will stand out too much. The point with the wheel is to make your decisions appear fairer. That will prevent the kids from creating theories about which kids you prefer or not.
In the end, this is an excellent way for choosing the next lecture you will present. For example, you can add several lectures and one field that is reserved for entertainment. Explain to the kids that whatever the result of the wheel is, they must follow it. Therefore, you might be able to motivate them to start paying more attention to the following subjects.
