Hello, I'm the Director/Full-time teacher in our 3 and 4-year-old classroom. I have been having a lot of problems with the class noise level. We are a very play-based center and the children have lots of free time to explore and play both indoors and out. We currently have 12 kids in the class but it will soon be 16. I would say they are engaged in some sort of independent or group game 85% of the time and not just running and yelling. I understand it will be loud and look messy, but I feel for the last 8 months it has been excessively loud. I'm looking for some ideas on how to address this with the kids or ideas of something to change in the environment to help with this. Here are things that I have tried and don't seem to help.
1) Making sure they have a variety of things to keep them engaged. So they aren't just wandering and either creating conflict or just plain running and yelling out of boredom
2) Making sure they have plenty of outside time every day, year-round.
3)`Modeling using appropriate voices. Not yelling at them to be quiet, addressing them at their level in a calm voice. (they just seem to outnumber me and it is a neverending battle)
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Shelby Leary
Director
University Kids
Wdm IA
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