Kids are amazing. They are interesting and sometimes they are hard too! However, they have a lot to teach us and if we just open up our minds and our eyes, this just might be the ticket to getting them to listen to us teachers or parents. Engaging and getting kids to realize the importance of what we are telling them is a constant challenge but it is so important that we keep trying. Perhaps there might be another way to get them to take charge of their learning? If we stop for a moment, listen, look around at our environment, and then look at the lesson or content that we have planned we may notice something. If we think about what the students love, perhaps we can infuse that into our day and then it just might become relevant and important to them.
I am the lucky one who gets to work with kids every single day and so I decided that I would start to keep track of what kids think are really cool things to talk about. You know what! They are right. These are really neat things to think, learn, and talk about each day. What I loved the most about it was that they are all things that make them really happy. We adults could learn a thing or two about keeping our minds positive right! I also realized that these are all things that could turn into careers or applications to real life. Imagine that! Students seeing how their learning applies to the real world!
You are probably wondering why I would do this. Well, because it matters. It matters to our kids and somewhere along the way these things on this list mattered more than my lessons. I had to study and think about what it was about this list that captivated them. How could I infuse these things into my lessons? I started with listening and observing the kids over time. Next, I wrote down my observations, I took action and implemented it into everything that I did. I infused it into my teaching style, my lessons, the way I lead kids as an administrator, the way I lead in staff meetings, and the way I parented my own kids. Very quickly, the kids shifted from ‘kind of’ interested to going all in as long as I infused choice, fun, and their interests into everything that I did. And yes! It was a lot of work! The best part of all, was they continued to learn, they now liked to learn, and it elevated the joy in my own teaching. Here is my list so far…
The first thing that I noticed about kids is that they love to talk about their pets. Teachers get to hear about how their pets sleep, how they eat, what their names are, and especially how they poop! What really surprised me was how many different pets there are in the world. I mean, I have heard about hamsters who hang out in the bathtub (without water of course), horses who let the kids dress them up, dogs who howl when sirens pass, cats who have no hair at all, and birds that fly around the house with no cages! Really, I could go on an on about pets! In fact, now that we are running Zoom lessons, we get to see the pets and have them as a part of our lessons now too! Imagine the animals we could read about! Or maybe we could write a persuasive essay as to why their animals should be allowed to attend school. What if we had them try to explain how to solve a math problem to their hamster on video for an assignment? An essay on the journey of teaching their pet a trick? The opportunities are endless!
Another thing that kids love to talk about are jokes. They love to crack open a joke any day of the week. And you know what? They are actually very funny! My favourite is when a kid makes up a joke of their own and it makes no sense at all, yet it is the funniest thing in the world. I love this so much! Jokes like “what did the water fountain say to the clouds?” I respond and say, “I don’t know what?” The kid responds, “you got a lot, a lot of problems.” Makes sense right? Like I said these are the funniest because you get to see what they wonder and think about. Their imaginations really are amazing and as a teacher, man, can we tap into that! What would happen if a child wrote a joke book? Maybe they could write a how to on pulling pranks on their sister? Perhaps they could gather data on how many people laughed at their joke?
The third thing I noticed that kids are super interested in are video games. I mean, it is epic when kids start to talk about video games because they get so excited that their eyes light up and spit starts flying out of their mouths! They jump up and down and every child in the room suddenly becomes interested. And then… the video game comes on and …….silence, blank stares, and all the adults hear are clicks from the controllers. But the joy that comes from a game is amazing to me. Somehow if I could just use that honed in interest to get them to create within my lessons. Using video games as the medium is a threshold to creativity because it is what they love. I wonder what would come out of writing the setting of a made up video game world? Coding a new game might be something that engages them. Creating a pitch to sell a video game using persuasive writing, budgeting, and marketing skills is another idea that came to me as I pondered how to infuse the love of gaming into lessons.
Scary stuff is another hot topic for kids. They love to talk about the dangers, mysteries and spooky parts of movies or what is happening in our world. Kids, talking about the things they shouldn’t be talking about, is dangerous and exciting to them. I think it is for adults too. However, the imagination and the stories that come out of their wonderings about the mysteries and hauntings of our world are outstanding. Just think what we could do if we allowed them the choice to write about things that were on their mind or we infused some spooky things or mystery into a math problem. Creating their own haunted house using a locked room where they had to create math problems and codes for their peers to solve is another idea that came to my mind.
Now that we are on the topic of spooky, the flip side of it is gross stuff! Kids love gross things! They love slime that feels like boogers squishing through their fingers. They love farts and boogers! They love to jump in puddles and hear the schlooping sound of the mud sucking up their rubber boots. Ok, you know the candy that you can buy at gas stations that resembles garbage or the jelly beans that have mysterious disgusting flavours like puke or egg smells? They love to eat those too! How fun! What could we do with gross topics in order to grab their attention? So many things! Science experiments are the first ideas that come to my mind. We could also do a social experiment where we create the most disgusting odour in our science class and then observe what happens when a crowd smells it. We could write about it, analyze data, research, etc.
Alright, moving on down the list. Kids love fireworks! There is something about that banging sound like the sky is busting open that turns all eyes towards that amazing explosion of sparks and hypnotizes all kids, and adults. They love the biggest most colourful ones. The “oohs and ahs” can be heard through the crowd when the giant, never ending fireballs explode. Fireworks are definitely an attention grabber and can hold their attention until the finale of all the fireworks exploding at once. Once it’s over, we have lost their attention once again. Your class might want to create a beautiful portrait of fireworks in the sky and then write an abstract about it. They may want to come up with the most insane idea of how fireworks are made and then try to persuade someone that their story is true. Fireworks are magical and a key to wonder.
Parties! Kids love parties and balloons! Especially their own birthday parties when it is all about them! We all should love our birthdays because that means we had another year of living and it is a chance to celebrate how special we are. Adults need to remember how lucky we are that we get to have birthdays each year too. Kids love that they get to do special things. Their friends come to hang out with them and it is their day. They also love to go to other birthdays which are just as much fun! This one is definitely a hot topic in the kid’s world! How could we infuse experts and student’s birthdays and names into our lessons to capture their attention and celebrate them? How could we turn a time management and event planning lesson infusing times, numbers of people per meal, venues, and budgets into a math lesson?
Speaking of parties, friends are another really important part of kid’s worlds. They love to take every chance they can to hang out with their buddies. Their eyes light up when they get a chance to go for a bike ride with them, or play an interactive video game with them, or just spend time with them. Am I right? This lights their heart on fire when they get to hang out and play. Especially if the kids are older. Friends are pretty special because they are their community and that is what we all need to have. How could we take this love of hanging out with friends and get them to collaborate, teach, or give feedback to each other within our lessons?
Interests and their passions are another thing that interests kids. I know that is a little confusing right? But it is true. Kids love to talk about things they are interested in like, hockey, dance, piano, etc. They even like to wear their interests as clothing. I see the same hockey sweaters or dance jackets go by every morning as they hop off the bus. I also see the mini sticks and lacrosse sticks and stuffed animals popping out of their backpacks each morning which tells me a lot about what they love to do and who they are . They wear their teams and interests with pride which is really neat to see as someone who is observing what kids love. How could we get them moving and using their interests to get a teaching point across? Wellness, using their passion as a medium, might be a great entry point to get them motivated and more joyful. They could write about it, teach someone about it, create with it. The opportunities are endless!
Sprinklers and water balloons. are another thing that brings ultimate joy to kid’s faces. There is something about the sound of a sprinkler, even if it isn’t in their own yard, that pulls them to just go for it and run through it. You know like when they are on a walk with their parents (not wearing a swimsuit, but regular street clothes) and a timer goes off and a sprinkler turns on. That mischievous smile comes across their faces and they just run! Or perhaps it is that hot summer day and the water balloons come out and the sprinkler turns on. Those giggles come straight from their bellies and the minutes turn into hours as they run through the sprinklers and dodge the missile like water balloons that are torpedoing towards them! I wonder how we could get them to figure out the perfect angle to hit their target….and then test it?
Ok let’s move to the little littles and talk about what they love. They love their mommies and daddies. Not to say the big kids don’t , they just don’t talk about it as much and it is just not as cool. But my heart grows three sizes when I see the little ones hugging their mom and dads in the morning before skipping into school. They often tell me, “teacher, that one I just hugged right there, yes that one, that one is my mom!” They say it so proudly! At lunch time, I walk through the KG to grade two classes and I often hear, “oh yea, well my mom can do this! Or my dad is so strong he can do that!” Parents strength and love are a very cool thing to be interested in. Don’t lose that! Grab hold of that love and get them to write, draw, tell a story, send a letter, create a math problem for them to solve, etc.
Toys, yep, kids love to talk about the next biggest toy coming out. It might be a stuffed animal, a top notch hockey stick, a toy that only comes out at Christmas and nobody can seem to find it on the shelves, etc. Whatever it is, everyone seems to like the same type of toy at the same time! It is crazy how that happens! What patterns and trends are kids noticing with the popularity of toys that happen around Christmas or throughout the year? That might be a great data analysis problem! What ends would they go to to convince their mom and dad that they need that toy? If they were a toy maker, what kind of a toy would they create and how?
“Ice cream! Ice cream! We all scream for ice cream!” Remember that song? Well it is super true. All kids love ice cream and when they hear that ice cream truck singing it’s tune from miles away, they all stop, listen for a moment and then the screams for mom and dad to let them have ice cream fill the air. Not to mention the trail of kids already running after the ice cream truck trying to stop it. As if it wouldn’t stop for that $9 ice cream sale… Parents I know you know what I am talking about right? How could we incorporate ice cream and value of candy or graphing of flavours into our lessons?
Well, I really could go on and on about the things kids love. But my point is to encourage teachers to keep up the love. Keep them loving all the things and keep generating energy from that. Grab on to that excitement about life and the little things. This is what will help to keep them engaged. Try to include the fireworks, the ice cream, the pets, the friends, even video games, and gather more and more things to add to the your list of really cool things in our world. Because you know what? These things might just bring you joy as an adult too.
Kids do give us answers to what they will engage in. In fact, they do it every day. We just have to listen. We need to bring some of those things that I just talked about back onto our joy list too. I am so thankful for the kids bringing me joy each day as I walk through the halls of the school or watch them jump off the bus or see them hanging out with their friends at recess. They bring me joy every day just by hearing and seeing them get excited about the little things.
Once I started to try out some of these ideas, my joy came back too. My engagement and belief in why I was doing what I was doing started to generate energy. I started to infuse some of these ideas into announcements, my read alouds, my every day conversations, my lessons, my interactions, and my teaching and leadership style and everything started to shift. The best part of all was they kept learning. I found more joy and the kids became more engaged. Make a list, take action, infuse it into your lessons, and see what happens!
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