Hi ~ so I'm a girl scout leader with two other women, and we have a troop of 15 first graders. We are having a difficult time wrangling these girls and keeping their attention.
First, we give them a snack because for sure they are hungry. They feed off each other and it's impossible to keep their attention for any period of time.
We don't want to be disciplinarians, and things like time out are not going to work. We are not going to start dishing out punishments.
We're looking for some ways to keep them focused, on task, but need outside the box suggestions. We're not their parents nor their teachers, so it makes it tricky.
Any suggestions??
Hi L.!
I agree with queen...'divide and conquer'!
How lucky you are to have 2 other adults to assist.
Snacks...and exercise as a large group...then smaller groups with specific tasks/plans for working on badges...then rotate the girls around the adults!
Best luck!
michele/cat
At our ballet studio, there can at times be 75+ kids in the lobby - it can get very chaotic. Any parent can do the handclap (pick any rhythm you want, but the one they use is 1,2...3,4,5) and immediately every child in the room will do the handclap and be totally silent. It's like magic, honestly. I found out from my kids that teachers also do this in the classroom, which is apparently why kids seem to respond so well when any other adult does it.
My other suggestion would be, if you have one kid who just won't shut up (there's always one!), move her so she is sitting slightly apart from the other girls. Not a long way, just a little too far to chit-chat easily. :)
Hi there!
Long time GS leader here :-)
Did you all go through the training? Do you attend monthly leader meetings? You'll get lots of great support and advice there (hopefully.)
For sure they should be having fun, but this is not a party or a playdate, they are supposed to be learning something after all.
When my girls were that young we always divided the group into patrols, or stations, and then rotated. Since you have two other adults you can each lead smaller groups of five at a time. Do NOT let the girls pick their groups (talk about drama!) just choose names out of a hat.
So at any given meeting we'd have one group doing a craft, another doing a game or activity and another doing planning/brainstorming, after 15 minutes or so we'd rotate so every girl got to do everything we were working on that day, but never all at once.
You and the other leaders WILL need to discipline them in some way because otherwise they will just run wild and do what they want and what's the point of that? You are their LEADERS and they should respect you as they would a teacher or coach, absolutely.
I never called it a "time out" but if a girl wasn't listening or was being otherwise disrespectful in some way she was asked to sit and work on homework until she was ready to rejoin the group. It was very effective, in general they didn't want to miss out.
Good luck!!!
You need to break them up into three groups of five. When I was in Girl Guides our units were divided into "patrols" of six girls. Each patrol had a leader called a sixer and a seconder (second in charge). Anyway, with three adults each adult can take charge of one patrol.
I was going to also suggest splitting them up into 3 groups, and each adult take a group. I see others have suggested that, also!
I also agree... don't let them decide on the groups.....
You may have to "change" the groups frequently until you find the kids that work best together without feeding off each other.
Also, do you have a time before the meeting for a bit of active play? That may help get the wiggles out, especially if your troop is meeting right after school.
Having never attended a GS meeting in my life, I don't know if this would work in your situation, but perhaps you could break out into small groups. Seems like it'd be easier for 1 adult to get 5 girls to focus than for 3 to work with all 15.
Do you give them any physical activity-jumping jacks, dancing, etc? I'm assuming these are after school meetings, so they are probably really ready for getting some crazies out before they have to focus in again.
Have you heard of the book "Teach Like a Champion"? The book is written by a teacher who studied effective teachers and why they were succeeding where other teachers were struggling.
Basically, you have a classroom management problem. But it CAN be dealt with. Instead of asking you to read a book, here's a link to an About article which has copious links to posts on each of the techniques:
http://specialed.about.com/od/managementstrategies/a/The-...
I'd first focus on the sections Creating a Strong Classroom Culture,Building and Maintaining High Behavioral Expectations, and Building Character and Trust. If you and your fellow scout leader do not have to be teachers to access great group/classroom management skills.
Also, you could have three 'stations' set up with one main activity and two smaller ones so that your group is broken up into smaller groups, as previously suggested. You are on the right track with having a snack available first; I'd build on that with a group 'check in' where everyone shares one good thing that has happened to them or their family since the last meeting. Build rituals for the beginning and end of the meetings, and keep things very highly structured. When I planned for groups, I always had two extra activities so that if we went over time, I wasn't stuck with a bunch of bored kids.
Also, find a book of cooperative group games, too. That will be lifesaver and easy to use if you earmark the pages you want to use in advance.
Good luck!
Another leader here. Mamazita is right -- lots of activities and break them into groups of five with one adult on each group. You are VERY fortunate to have three adults for 15 kids, please realize that! Be sure you have a very focused plan for every moment of every meeting and a lot of hands-on things -- girls this age need the hands-on, making-stuff aspect a lot. Remember that they have short attention spans and the idea of rotating to different activities is a good one.
To add: Yes, as Mamazita says, do not let them choose their own groups; do it with random name draws. I would add two things: First, random name draws can be "fixed." Yep, fixed. We had some girls who wanted to do EVERYTHING including breathing together and we regularly gamed the draws so that they were together at times but separated at others. Second, I wouldn't form fixed patrols that stay the same for the rest of the year; that could end up creating three cliques of five. Pick new girls for each group each week to avoid that.
As for punishments -- if they are busy enough and the activities are engaging and hands-on you shouldn't really need to do much of that, but if a girl is truly out of line (especially treating another girl badly or disrespecting a leader) you DO have to do something or it sends a terrible message to the other girls that that behavior is tolerated. Have the offender sit out one of the desirable activities. You are not there to parent them but you are there to lead, and you do have the authority to ensure that no girl behaves in a way that is not like a true Girl Scout. Having them sit out says "you don't participate if you behave that way, and at the end of that activity you can see if you are able to behave as part of the troop." Be sure to have the girl apologize too!
Last thing -- snack time often "loses" them -- it breaks momentum and they get all social and chatty and don't want to focus. We dropped snack time as soon as our girls were Juniors. If your meeting is right after school you may need to do it but otherwise I'd tell parents to ensure their girls come with a snack inside them. Keep to a strict time limit on snack if you must have it and briskly move them off it. Be sure that the girls, not you leaders, are responsible for all cleaning up and praise them for doing it FAST.
Well, the snack shouldnt have any sugar in it thats for sure.
Nature is the best way to attract 7 yr old's attention.
Maybe show a vid of catterpilllars or something similar and then go outside and find some.... It can be ANYTHING tho... but you need to plan for it so you know that nature is going to cooperate with you, leaves, spiders, mouse holes, etc... 7 yr olds have a sense of ADVENTURE and they need it FED as they are our next science resource.
The next meeting start off with telling them the plan for the night - have it written out or pictorially represented on a poster or display of some sort. The order should be first let them run off some steam - have a cooperative moving activity to start out, yoga might be good to calm them down or you could do the music freeze dance game that that age goes nuts over
then do your snack and while they are eating snack talk to them about their lesson of the day. Try to keep the snack healthy, it really matters! Sugary stuff makes it a party, carrots makes it something educational.
After that part, if they listened (make sure you warn them of this) they can play a little game (again moving or cooperative, hopefully it will work into the lesson), then back to a circle or table for whatever lesson or project you will be doing that night.
As long as they know the plan it will work out much better.
Another trick - head down time out. They get noisy or misbehave you say "put your heads down" in a very mean voice. It will only take about 10 seconds of their head down, you tell them what you expect and then tell them to put their heads up with their listening ears/calm hands/etc. ready. Used that all the time as a sub, lol
Can I highly suggest after they eat some movement activity? Do 5-10 min of stretching or some sort of game, scaventure hunt. We have no space and we can do ours in a hallway at the school cafe. Then we do 2 min of a calming relaxation type talk while they are lying on floor. The. We get them back at the lunch tables for the lesson. They have been sitting all day in school the last thing they want to do is sit and learn again even though it is fun and they need to. They can do sits up or push ups or yoga some different each time or keep it the same so they know they eat then do the physical activity then the Sit down activity. When it's nice out maybe u can utilize playground for 10 min. Or have them run laps in the gym. It can be part of a badge too that they get for healthy lifestyle....
Makes you really thankful for teachers who wrangle 20+ 7 year-olds every day!
We always start with either chacha slide or another active dance, we eliminated snack, they have lunch and snack at school and dinner on the way, this eliminated cost/cleanup/allergy problema and we really are there long anyway andkidss need to learn every event need not include food. We do our opening in a circle, then divide everyone up a different way each time. We do 3 stations and each station is 20 minutes. Each leader plans and does a station. It is run with school rules as it is to learn respect and follow the girl scout ethic. So yes they are ramped up, yes you want them to have fun but don't make it so out of control no one can have fun.
