Using Fidgets to Increase Attention in the Classroom
Fidgets can be a really helpful tool for your students to increase their focus, attention, and keep them calm while learning. I first learned about the different kinds of fidgets available when I was teaching special education inclusion in 4th grade. I transformed my classroom to be flexible seating and provided fidgets for my students. The next year when I moved to 2nd grade regular education, all of these tools and ideas were still just as necessary and successful in helping my students.
How Fidgets Help Students Focus
- keeps their hands moving and occupied in a proactive way
- diverts attention from wandering thoughts and keeps them present to soak in all of your lesson’s greatness
- can calm their emotions (anger, anxiety, worry, sadness, over excited, jealous, etc.) and keep them on an even emotional level to best pay attention
Keys to Success of Fidget Use in the Classroom
Before students can independently recognize their need for a fidget and use it, you need to teach them a lot about this new strategy available to help them in your classroom. Some things that you should discuss, teach, and model are:
- the fidget is a tool NOT a toy
- how to use each fidget appropriately
- how to not distract others while using
- identifying when it is needed/ how to get one
- appropriate time usage
I model how to do things in our classroom appropriately using a strategy called interactive modeling. This helps to involve students in understanding how the behavior should look, feel, and sound.
I keep the fidgets in a container on my desk. Depending on the group of students I manage them in different ways. Most years I just tell my students to ask when they need one. One year I gave my students 2 little pieces of paper in the morning and then again in the afternoon. This was so that they would turn in the paper in order to use a fidget. I did this because students were asking SO often to use the tools, they became more like toys.
Fidgets I Use In My Classroom
I also make these fidgets available in my Take a Break Area of my classroom where students can go to have a moment to calm down or refocus. I hope that these tools help your students to stay focused and calm to be at their highest learning potential during your lessons!
Affiliate links were used in this blog post.
