Whether you're a teacher, a parent, or just someone with a large family, you know how difficult it can be to keep a room full of kids quiet for any length of time.
One trick I have used is to suggest how long children can remain silent. For reasons I don't understand, children like it when things are written out. But this will only work a few times at most, so it's good to have as many other tricks on hand as possible. That's why I was fascinated to learn that there are many websites that use the microphone on your laptop to encourage children to keep quiet. Some tap into children's curiosity by featuring animated characters if the group is silent long enough. Others combine animation with good old timers.
Here are a few you might want to check out – they're all completely free and don't require anything other than your browser.
Quiet Forest: Animals appear if the room is quiet.
Credit: Justin Poth
Quiet forest shows a simple animated forest with a volume indicator. Be silent for a moment and the cat will appear. A little more and a bear appears. Who else can join? There's only one way to find out. However, if you make too much noise, you'll scare the animals, meaning you'll have to start all over again if you ever want to see them all. The idea is that children will be curious to see which animals will appear next and remain silent – and, ideally, silence each other.
Balloons: Noise will disturb the balloons.
Credit: Justin Poth
Balloons fills your screen with balls – options include colored balls, smiley faces, numbered balls, eyeballs and even bubbles. The balls vibrate constantly, threatening to explode with a slight noise, which they do. There is a risk of backlash – watching balls bounce is actually a lot of fun – and you can mitigate this by turning on a beep or a rustling sound after any infraction.
What are your thoughts so far?
Cool Zen: Don't interrupt Ruby or Milo
Credit: Justin Poth
Cool Zen offers several different tools for keeping your room quiet. Two of them feature Ruby, a cartoon who meditates in either the mountains or the desert. If the room gets too loud, her eyes will start to open – continue and she will ask the room to be quiet. Another features Milo, the three-eyed monster, trying to sleep.
However, the secret sauce here is the timer at the top of the screen. This means you can tell children they need to be quiet for a certain amount of time and set a timer to ensure this.
