Kids Just Wanna Have Fun . . .

While sitting at my daughter's gymnastics class yesterday, I was thinking about just how much we have squeezed the fun out of school. Watching her be so happy and laughing while she was learning the new routine made me jealous of her teacher. I seriously thought about quitting my job and becoming a gymnastics instructor. (If you know me then you know that is pretty funny. I may have been a cheerleader when I was in school, but all my coordination left after having two kids. I'm lucky if I can get through a day without tripping at least twice!) The point is that I miss seeing my students laugh and play.

Kids need to have fun. Let me say that again - they really NEED to have fun. As teachers, we put so much emphasis on learning the standards so that they can pass the state assessments that we have taken out all of the fun. I saw a funny political comic the other day about how we are just creating "children of the core". It's true. Even though our children come in very different, we are expected to have them exit our classrooms at the end of the year knowing all of the same material and we truly have taken all of the fun out of it. Recently we even had to take away recess. We can sneak it in every now and then, but the fact is there is too much to teach and too little time. My eight and nine year olds are having to sit in a classroom all day long and learn. What kind of a childhood is that? It's not much better than going to work all day long.

How do I add fun back into the classroom?  Dancing. It's pretty simple. If the students work hard and get all of their required work done in time, I play a Just Dance video for them at the end of class. They are pretty easy to find on YouTube. The kids enjoy them because they are current pop songs and I enjoy them because I LOVE seeing my babies happy. Their true personalities get to come out. They get a much needed brain break and they get to develop socially.

Sometimes I will even throw them in when I start to notice that I am losing them. I always find something positive someone has done - "Oh, my goodness! Tommy has written so neatly today! Guess what? He earned the whole class a brain break!" The children then get 3 minutes to recharge their brains and have fun and come back ready to learn.

There are other brain breaks out there - just Google "brain breaks". However, I really enjoy watching my students have fun and get to be themselves through dancing. I warn you though, the ones who you think are quiet and shy will truly show out and be the craziest dancers!