When Your School Buses Are Staggered...Oh no :(

The school day is over. But not quite yet. You have to cap off the day dealing with a staggered school bus schedule. Depending on how this goes, it might not make much of a difference in your day. Or it could.

Here's how a staggered bus schedule works. A few of your students (often a few of the best behaved, oh the irony) leave right away. And then minutes later more are called and then more. And then finally about 20 minutes later the last batch. And let's face it, there's always a kid or two in that last batch that is NEEDY or messy. They are not content just sitting at their desk or table quietly, staring ahead, reading, drawing, nooo. They are either bugging you or making a mess without realizing it. Whyyy me? That's what you think, especially when you peak across the hall and notice the teacher in that room left with either no students or just one or two quiet, neat as a pin students happily coloring or reading. Why, why, why, you think, can't that be me.

What do you do? Yes, you can require silence, give reward tickets for following directions, provide limited choices. But what if there was a way to make waiting fun and build social emotional skills without things feeling like a punishment or getting out of control. Wait!

There is. It's a game called Stand Up If You...There's many different versions, but I'm going to share my Back to School Edition with you here. There are 20 editable slides to project that ask questions such as if you always pack a lunch or if you have a sibling at school. The game is not only a great way for students to learn more about each other, it is engaging, provides a little movement (with standing up), and you can even have a student leading it.