Spring Forward

So, I get a blog that comes to my email. It is from a Responsive Classroom blog called Yard Sticks. I am going to share with you what Chip wrote this week.


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Some call this week at school “March Madness,” with a nod to the endless basketball parade on television this time of year. The analogy does fit if you think about the college kids who are sometimes playing three and four basketball games in as many days, the ones with the greatest stamina often the ones surviving to win their conference championships.The more-fatigued-than-usual kids we see this week entering morning classes in elementary, middle, and high school with noticeably tired eyes and faces are dealing with the change to Daylight Savings Time. A loss of an hour’s sleep Saturday night is playing havoc with sleep patterns and circadian rhythms, and it takes some children weeks to readjust. Crankiness, disengagement, mental fatigue, and poor work production can be observable this week.

And it’s not just the kids. Teachers are affected by this change as well and probably found it harder getting up and off to school Monday morning. We push through and think we’re quickly adjusting, but our patience and attentiveness may not be par excellence. What to do?

It makes sense this week to:

Talk to your students about getting extra sleep at home this week, and why
Build a few more short stretch breaks into your lessons
Take a “one-minute nap” with your class
Make sure kids are drinking plenty of water
Sneak in a ten-minute outdoor break once or twice this week for your class
In many states, this week it is getting close to state standardized test windows. The strategies I’ve suggested for helping kids adjust to Daylight Savings Time are also well-known to help with test-taking attention and energy at all grade levels!