Can you hear me now?

Hoooooold up! It's been eight weeks? That is so crazy to think!  A lot has happened these past few weeks among all the delays and cancellations. This past week I was especially excited to pick up my fifth class, Horticulture! Overall, the group of students is awesome and have a lot of personalities! This is by far my biggest class with the number of students in it; a total of 22!

Out of all the excitement, I quickly realized that this will be my most challenging group. This is not because of behavior issues but the amount of energy this class has. These kiddos are ENERGETIC. There's a mix of 9-12 graders, and they all get along so well. A challenge that I foresee with this group and have experienced a little bit is wrangling them in.  A couple of times I lost the group for a bit with their side conversations and had to use my TEACHER voice to bring back their attention because they are not listening.

I've worked with elementary students at camp, and when this would happen, I would use silly techniques like "1.2.3. Eyes on me", "if you hear my voice clap once," and my personal favorite performing a clapping pattern and them repeat it back to me. It worked well with my campers, and they became well conditioned (Shout out to Pavlov). To me, these seem a little immature for my students but will those techniques work? I LOVE the energy that my students provide and I don't want to threaten it by invoking some sort of punishment when students start chatting.  I want to preserve my voice and the energy of the class.

I'm curious to hear what others do in terms of bringing the class attention back on you!