Sweet Classroom Activity

by Rivette Pena

The Holiday season is upon us and our students are finding it difficulty to stay on task. The crisp in the air the thoughts of vacation days on the horizon. They are pretty ansy. It’s time to get creative in the classroom.

Fall begets carnivals and festivals. Candy Apples, cotton candy, games, rides and snack food. All the things good memories are built upon. So why not bring those games and treats to your classroom. Here are a couple of ideas.

Cake Walk

A good old fashioned cake walk. Music, walking around in a circle and solving problems. Who could ask for anything more? Place numbers 1-10 or 12 on the floor a number for each of the children you have in class, even if you have to repeat numbers I would use at half the number of kids in your class. Each turn you will call out a number and you don’t want 4 or 5 of the same number. Place the numbers in a circle around on the room on the ground, the walls or the desks.

You can have the problems/questions on the desk, wall or with the students. You will tell them which question to answer. They will work on a clipboard, whiteboard, or tablet. You will randomly call out a number. If they are on the number, you will check their problems to see if they are correct. If they are correct they get to pick a snack cake. If they are wrong, they don’t get one. Make sure everyone goes home with at least one snack cake. Everyone will be engaged with every question. Modifications can be made as needed.

After each problem, play music and have kids walk to the next spot. Have them keep walking until the music stops that way they are changing numbers in between. One teacher suggests using different colors as well so you can say “ all reds step forward with your answer.” or “all multiples of 4”, or “all odd numbers”. The students really enjoy this game a lot.

Another review game that kids love is called Fly-Swatter game. Now this game works a little differently.

Fly Swatter Game

I use slides to write my questions on. Each question is multiple choice or True False. The class is broken into two teams. Each team sends up a representative to answer the question. I have my students stand several desks away from the board. Make sure there is a clear pathway to the board. You don’t want kids being pushed into desks or tripping on backpacks.

The question is revealed. The teacher gives the signal to answer. The students rush to the board to swat the correct answer with their fly swatter. The kids really get into this. If the first person gets it wrong then the other person gets to steal the points.

After the points are tallied the next couple of players steps up to answer a question.

One more review activity always seems to be hit at least with my students. My students loved an escape room. I’ve made several escape rooms over the years but nothing is simpler than creating a self checking, self grading computer based google forms escape room.

Digital Escape Rooms are easy to make and simple to assign. I usually create 3 levels with 10 questions. Level one 3 questions, Level two 4 questions and Level three 3 questions. If the answers are multiple choice have the letters of the answer be a combination to a safe or a code to break the barrier to the next level.

For the first level, I created 3 questions. Each question is a multiple choice and worth 10 points. The student must answer these questions to be able to move on.

The code question is not worth points but if it is not entered correctly the student may not move on. They must get those 3 questions correct before moving on. Perfect time for partners or small groups. If you are interested in this activity visit the TPT store https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ Sellers-Im-Following/Add/A-Math-Mindset