Stirrers and settlers for young learners

When teaching young learners, teachers need to adopt a balanced teaching style which includes a variety of activities often called either stirrers or settlers. Stirrers are activities which encourage students to be active and dynamic which may include standing, hopping, strolling and running. Settlers are activities opposite to stirrers. It involves learners to sit down and be calm.

It is important for teachers to use these different activities to establish a routine in the classroom. And also to use the activities to make the unfamiliar surroundings familiar to young learners. Some of the stirrers and settlers activities are as follows:

1. Create a positive learning environment for the young learners where the young learners have the freedom to select his/her activities and the teacher either add/remove materials as needed).
2. Create a controlled atmosphere right from the beginning by allowing the kids to enter the classroom and settle down quickly in small groups (for instance if a class has 15 students making a group of five in each will do so).
3. Ask them to introduce themselves one by one will also help in getting them acquainted with their classmates.
4. Engage them in physical activities such as warm-up exercises, dance-related activities, or games that require physical movement. Physical activities are effective in settling young learners.
5. Use hand gestures to reinforce communication e.g. “thumbs up” to pay attention to the teacher or “raising both the hands up” meaning everybody needs to calm down. Once young learners are familiar with the hand gestures, they can be used to settle students easily.
6. Make young learners get acquainted with the routines and procedures to have minimal classroom management issues.
7. Teach students to do stretching exercises, take deep breaths, practise yoga or perform exercise-based activities.
8. Let young learners draw or colour in the worksheet or drawing books while reciting a simple story in the background and then enquiring the students if they had been listening to the story.
9. Conduct short activities for instance showing the colourful balls or blocks and asking them to name the colour.
10. Use playdough as a tool to settle down the young learners. Most children enjoy making shapes out of the play dough.
11. Fill a small container filled with water and allow young learners to sail paper boats.

Ms Pooja Agarwal is a Counseling Psychologist, Montessori Trainer and Founder of Samarthya. She specializes in assisting individuals with emotional, psychological wellbeing issues by improving their capacity to resolve the crisis, alleviate feelings of distress and enhance individual capabilities.

^{The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Eblity or its team members.}