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Art of Redirection
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My kids always want what the other one has so I will get a puzzle or magnet blocks and start making something then they will come help me it almost works all the time.
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I have 3 year olds they all playing together out side one will get tired of what they are dong and come and say they won’t play with me I ask why she says because I don’t want to play that any more so we go play on the slides on the play ground then the rest want to play there also.
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The class was having circle time and listening to directions from the lead teacher for the morning activity. One child was standing up and saying she was angry that they couldn’t play, which was distracting the rest of the class. I gave them a stick and asked them to draw me a picture in the dirt. This helped them to shift their focus and be able to listen.
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There was one day when I saw a few children who had a lot of energy in their bodies. They were beginning to run around the classroom. I decided to engage them in a song where they could safely move their bodies in the environment.
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When a child didn’t get the specific color rope she wanted, she was upset and started crying. We identified she was feeling sad and problem solved together and decided to ask the friend who had the rope she wanted for it when he was all done using it. After that we looked around and found that another rope on the ground no one was using and decided to use this rope until the one she wanted was available. She was able to calmly play by problem solving and then redirecting to another rope. For context I work at an outside forest school, and we were making spider webs out of colored rope.
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We had a play kitchen in our class and 2 of the children were already playing with it and a nether child was trying to get in the space to play cook and there was no room but there was space at a table so i ask if they would like there friend to serve them and they sat down and got served and everyone was happy.
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One time during free play, two kids were starting to argue over a toy truck. Instead of making them share right away, I redirected one of them by asking if he could help me build a road with blocks for the trucks. This got his attention and soon both kids were playing together and taking turns on their own. To help with communication, I like to model simple phrases like, “ can I have a turn when you’re done?”
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There was a time when a child took a toy from another child and I had him give it back. I then redirected him to another toy. I also ask him if he would like to have some independent time so he could calm down.
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I had a child who was insistent about not cleaning up before going outside, so I asked the child which toys he would like to clean up first, which helped him because he knew he had a choice rather than cleaning up everything. He calmed down then and made a choice about what to clean up, rather than being overwhelmed by the mess of the entire center, and he focused on the few toys he chose to clean up at the time.
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I can recall circle time and having a new friend join our class. We start our day with Music and Movement and make our way into circle time. The new student was not responding to the music and after multiple attempts of asking him to join and running around the room, he just came and sat at the carpet. I told him “ I wanted to start the day out on a good foot.” He looked at me and looked at his foot confused. I then asked “You don’t like to dance?” There was no response. “Do you not like the music?” There was no response but when I walked away he was up and running around again. I went to him and grabbed his hand and brought him to the circle and put him in our dance line while everyone danced around him. He still didn’t dance but he smiled and then sat on the carpet while we finished music.
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Modeling effective communication is very important in my classroom, especially when it comes to 4-5 year olds because emotions can be so big and debilitating. I work on building not only our language but the awareness of the emotions outside of happy, sad, and mad to help build smarter and more self-aware students creating an open and loving space for any and all to join.
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I once was working one to one with kindergartener. We were doing our morning circle, the students had to raise their hand sitting in their chair to share with the class. She wanted to jump and raise her hand then i told her that she has to sit down with her hand up to get called on, then she screamed and tried to run across the classroom, i followed her across, sitting with her on the floor asking her if she can explain to me what she’s feeling. I then talked to her that I don’t scream and her and asked her not to scream at me and we dont like when other people scream at us, once we talked more about her sitting in her chair to answer, i told her that if she can sit for 2 questions she can answer a question up on the white board. this was a good redirection
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I have used redirection on a few occasions with toddlers. One child will be playing with a toy and another will want to play with it as well. I like to redirect the child to play with another toy in the room while they wait for their turn. I also encourage communication by suggesting alternative ways a child could communication how they felt about something for example instead of simply saying “stop” when another child touches their toy they could say “stop please i’m still playing”
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Toddler teacher here. I’ve used redirection daily in the classroom, mostly over kids fighting over toys. “Child A” is playing with a car, and “child B” comes over and takes the car “A” is playing with. Most of the time I walk over to “B” and tell them “I see you want to play with a car, but this car “A” was playing with. Let’s give back the car and find our own car” then I proceed to walk with child “B” to give the toy back to “A” and finding a car for themselves.
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I often use redirecting when my students are having a hard time paying attention while I’m speaking. When I am explaining something and my students are having a hard time paying attention, I will usually start to do something like singing a song in a silly voice to get their attention back. Once I have their attention, I just continue on with what I was saying previously. Thankfully, this seems to work.
