Student Contributor: A. Bonnington
An energizer can be used to get the students active and reengaged. A good time to use this is after they have been sitting through for a while. This is to help the students not check out during the day.
This tool should be used as a way to reengage students. The activity you choose should take no more than 5 minutes. Something to keep in mind with energizers is to keep the grade friendly. The OSPI website is a great place to look up the P.E standards to make sure the movements you choose are grade appropriate. Pinterest is also a great place to find specific energizers to do. The key component of energizers is movement. A benefit to energizers is that you can incorporate subjects into the energizers. A good time to do an energizer is after reading time or as a transition between a couple lessons.
This tool best fits with the supportive phase. I decided this because students might need to get buzzed. After they had lunch and their tummies are full, they could get tired. An energizer would help wake them up. An energizer is a great tool to support your students during a lesson. They could have been working really hard during a math lesson and you decide they have been sitting a while and need to get moving. This helps with getting them to continue being focused. I think this best fits with the teacher-directed classroom because the teacher will be the one to recognize and start the energizer for the students. The students wouldn’t be initiating it.
More Information –
Tool Source: Dr. Carri Kreider (PHED 390)
I implemented this tool in a third-grade class with about 25 students. When preparing the tool, I had to find an energizer that was appropriate for third-grade as well as short enough to be effective without taking away from the learning. Part of the preparation part was also making sure that students were in a safe area to perform the movement energizer. When implementing the energizer students had lots of fun and after the energizer students were more motivated to pay attention to the learning. Therefore, the implementation part of the tool was much easier than the preparation part. Students understood their role in the tool because the tool was explained to them before they did it and I also participated in the energizer with them which helped them to know how it was performed. I believe that this tool does not need to be readjusted because in my classroom it was successful in helping students transition well from one subject to another without being mentally fatigued from the subject before.
Grade Level: 2nd Grade
Number of Students: 18
Demographics: Rural
This was a pretty easy tool to test out in my classroom, the only thing that was a bit challenging was finding ones that I thought my students would enjoy. I added them into the longest stretch of class my students have without recess or a special. Normally during this time they start to fidget and get distracted easily. I tried this tool out a few separate times and each time I noticed a big difference in their behavior. After we took a break for the energizer they came back much more focused and ready to continue the lesson. My students knew that their role was to have fun with the break and let out all their wiggles, but that they needed to focus again afterwards. We talked about not letting it get them completely off task and just using it to refocus their brain. There wasn’t really anything I could add to make this better. My students had a lot of fun with them and since there is such a wide range of energizers there is a good one for almost every situation.