How Do You Get from A to B?

If a child such as Andrew has particular difficulty adapting, give him some extra help; don’t wait for him to demand it with his behavior. To ensure that he’ll get to the park without incident, ask him to be your partner, labeling his feelings: “I know change is hard for you, but let’s be partners and we can talk some more about the story on the way to the park.” This is not a punishment but a way to help him to succeed, and he should be your partner as often as he needs to be. If you think ahead of time about providing the support the children require to act appropriately, their self-esteem remains intact and the whole group moves more smoothly from one activity to another.

Because transitions are so problematic, there should be as few as possible. But even after you’ve examined your program with a magnifying glass there will be some that you just can’t change or eliminate, such as putting on snowsuits, hats, scarves, and boots when it’s time to go outside in the winter. So make transitions fun. Float down the hall like astronauts; sing the song about the five little ducks following their mother; take a theme from the story you just read and ask the children to fly to the gym like Stella Luna the bat. There are many songs and games that adapt well to these unavoidable moments.

Clean-up is always difficult. When you assign tasks to everyone (“You are responsible for putting away the costumes”) it helps those children who need extra direction to have a goal and a limited responsibility. It also enables you to provide a rationale for the children who need one (“You are responsible for putting the trucks in the garage so we’ll know where they are when you want to play with them again”). Be sure to relate the task to what the child has been doing, and make it achievable (“You are responsible for putting away all the scissors”—not “You are responsible for cleaning up the art table”). To make the clean-up process more fun, put on music with a driving beat that makes everyone want to dance—big band music, for example. Give the children some dancing time when everything is back in place. Another way to smooth clean-up is to ensure that it isn’t overwhelming. That means thinking ahead about the number of objects you make available and making it very obvious where each belongs.

Sometimes the transition itself causes the problem. Is an orderly line really necessary? You’ll need one when the children are crossing the street, but do you need it when they’re going to the bathroom? Waiting is hard, and children tend to find interesting—and not always appropriate—ways to entertain themselves. If you can avoid waiting, you can avoid its consequences.

Instead of moving all the children at once, it sometimes makes more sense to divide the group into smaller units. This can even become a teaching opportunity if you ask the children, “Who’s wearing running shoes?” or “Who’s wearing green socks?”

One very good way to ease the pain of transition is to have all the materials ready before an activity begins. If you are team-teaching, one person can do the preparation while the other reads a story or guides another activity.

All children function better when there is a consistent routine: They feel more secure knowing what to do, when to do it, and what is coming next. Post a picture schedule to help them remember and understand. If you’re going on a field trip or the season changes and you’re going swimming instead of to the gym, tell the children in advance, and move the pictures accordingly.

Here are some other techniques to ease transitions:

• Allow children who are slow to adapt to have more time to make a change.
• Some children may want to hear all the concrete details about what’s coming up next: the time (after story), the place, who’s going, when you’ll be coming back.
• Some children do better if they have a job to perform during a transition: be a leader, carry the backpack with the food, carry the diaper bag.
• Some children can use a peer buddy to guide and reinforce them.