Talkative Classroom

Let me start this post by saying that I am incredibly lucky this year. My students are kind to each other (and me), they try their best all day long, and they say funny things that make me laugh. The downside of having such a fun class is that they love to talk. More than that, they can't seem to stop talking. Ever. Sometimes they aren't even talking to another person. They talk to themselves. Sing to themselves. Hum to themselves. All. day. long.

I have spent the last two months of school constantly saying, "Please don't talk to your neighbor right now." "No talking, please." "Zero voices." They always stop right away, but a few minutes later I have to remind them again. It was driving me bananas. And I am guessing they didn't like it either.

I remembered an app I used last year that showed our class volume on a meter, but I couldn't find it. Luckily,  found something better.

Too Noisy Pro's screen looks like this, and the meter moves as the volume of the class changes. The class earns stars when their noise level is in the green, and a warning goes off when the noise gets to the red. The meter is very sensitive, so it keeps the kids whispering which is perfect.

You, as the teacher, can set how long students have to be quiet to earn each star, at what level the warning should go off, and a bunch of other stuff. There are even different backgrounds and meters to choose from.

My students loved being able to see their volume on the meter. As I said above, they really are great kids and they want to be quiet - I just don't think they knew how loud they were. The best part of using the meter is that I don't have to remind them to be quiet. This app made Friday such a great day for all of us! I am hoping it works again next week.

If you are thinking that your kids would get tired of this little gimmick, you are probably right. I built this into our existing classroom management system. Actually, the kids suggested it. Every time the kids get all seven stars on the screen a giant star pops up. You then need to start over with the meter. Well, when a giant star pops up in my classroom, a kid jumps out of his or her seat, resets the meter and adds a smilely face to our class tally (smileys for awesome behavior, sad faces for unexpected behavior). If we have more smilelys at the end of the day we get to do something fun. More sad faces and we need to build or working stamina. The only time my kids get more sad faces is when they are having a chatty day. Friday they got five smileys and no sad faces!

Anyway, I hope this tip helps! I know that I have Googled what to do about a noisy classroom and I have had a hard time finding something I could try the next day. You can definitely try this the next day. (PS - There is a free version, but I happily paid the $3.99 for the "PRO" version.)