Managing High-Energy Times

Share / assign

Why it works

Certain times of day and year are predictably more difficult, students return from lunch or recess wound up, energy flags or spikes at the end of the day, focus frays before breaks. Classroom management works better when teachers anticipate these predictable challenges and plan for them deliberately, with routines to settle or re-energize, appropriately matched activities, and realistic expectations, rather than being surprised by them or fighting the natural energy.

The research: Research on classroom management and attention across the day.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

The core activity: plan for your hardest times

Teachers leave with routines and matched activities for their predictably hard times.

Identify your predictably hardest times of day or year.
Plan routines to settle or re-energize for those moments.
Match activities to the energy (not the hardest content when focus is lowest).
Set realistic expectations and channel the energy.

Anticipate and plan, don't just endureThe hard times of day are predictable. Plan settling or re-energizing routines, match activities to the energy, and channel it, rather than fighting or enduring it.

Facilitator notes

Anticipate predictable hard times.
Plan settling or re-energizing routines, and match activities to energy.
Channel, do not fight.

Being surprised by predictable chaos is a plan problemIf the same time of day falls apart every time, it needs a plan, not just endurance. Anticipate and build routines for it.

Adapt it

Elementary: settling routines, movement, matched activities.
Secondary: transitions, matched activities, realistic expectations.
All settings: anticipate, plan, channel the energy.

Participant handout

One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

K12 Academics · Professional Learning

High-Energy Times: anticipate and plan

Predictable, so plannable: settling or re-energizing routines, activities matched to the energy, realistic expectations.

My predictably hardest times of day or year:
The settling or re-energizing routines I will use:
How I match activities to the energy:
My realistic expectations for those moments:
A hard time to plan for now:

Make it stick

Anticipate and channel:

Anticipate and plan.
Channel the energy.
Bring a hard-time plan that worked to the next PLC.

Common questions

My class is impossible right after lunch. What can I do?

Anticipate it. Plan a settling routine for the return, match the activity to their energy (not the hardest new content), and build the transition deliberately. Predictable challenges can be planned for.

How do I handle the day before a break?

Adjust expectations and activities to the reality, keep routines, channel the energy into engaging, appropriately-matched work, and do not fight the natural excitement, plan with it.

Isn't this just a rough patch to get through?

These times are predictable, so they can be planned for rather than endured. Anticipate, adjust, and use routines, and they become manageable instead of chaotic.