-
Stress Free Classroom: Top Tips for Early Childhood Educators to Handle Challenging Moments
As an early childhood educator, what’s your go-to trick for turning a stressful classroom moment into a smooth sailing one? Share your superhero technique!
-
1 Reply
-
It depends what is going on in the moment, but I have two of my favorites listed here: When we’re trying to calm down to transition from a big energy activity to a slower paced one (i.e. coming inside from outdoor play and transitioning to lunch), I love to put on calming, peaceful music, turn the lights down, and have the children lie down on the rug and close their eyes. I tell them to imagine their happy place (whatever that means to them), and we all have a minute of quiet together. It helps us all recenter, regulate, and catch our breath. I have found a favorite callback among all my students is, “Who you gonna call?” and having them respond, “Ghostbusters!” It doesn’t matter where we are, if the volume has gotten too big, they will immediately respond when they hear that, and we’re able to shift the energy from there. We occasionally also have a Ghostbusters song dance party, which is a huge hit as well.
