Before you even begin to teach, you want to make sure that your students are on the same playing field, so to speak. For example, if we're going to be playing soccer, you want them to understand that, and not that we're talking about baseball.

You often can do this through an attention getter.

My students may be thinking about a lot of different things. They may be thinking about a snack. They may be thinking that I miss my mom. And I want them to be focused in on what we're going to be learning that day.

I can do this with an attention getter, such as asking a little question about that topic, singing a song,

showing a short video clip.

But I just want to do a little something to help illustrate and gain their attention for what we're talking about today.