Just for Fun

Sometimes, despite our best planning, we end up with a few minutes at the end of class that need to be filled.  Maybe the kids "got it" sooner than anticipated, or a large percentage are absent, or we sense their frustration level is getting too high to make further pushing productive.  In moments like this, it's helpful to have a few fun activities up your sleeve.   Here are a few of our go-to games.

www.akinator.com

Akinator:  You can download the app for your smartphone, or you can visit www.akinator.com.  The idea is that you think of a character, and, through a series of yes or no questions, a genie tries to guess your character.  The goal is to stump the genie, and it's really hard to do.  When I use this game in class, I steer the kids away from the SpongeBob Squarepants characters they are wont to suggest, and I nudge them towards literary characters in the stories or novels we've been reading.  I work the controls, read out the questions, and the kids shout out the appropriate answer.  It's pretty much a choral response when the questions are "Does your character wear shoes?"  But when the questions become more subjective, interesting debates arise.  Is Atticus Finch a warrior?  Does Buck fight evil?  Choose obscure characters for your best chance at stumping the genie.  (Akinator got Atticus Finch in about 10 questions, but never did manage to guess Sergeant Major Morris from "The Monkey's Paw.")  The kids love it, and a few have downloaded the app on their own devices.

Black Out Poetry:  Personally, this is my favorite.  You can use it for a whole class period or to keep kids engaged for the last ten minutes before dismissal.  Here's what you need:  old books, highlighters, and black sharpies or markers.  Tear or cut pages out of the books, and have students highlight words or short phrases that can be strung together to paint a picture or tell a story.  Then use the black marker to black out the rest of the page.  What's revealed is the poem.  I have just started playing with color: highlighting words with the same mood in one color, contrasting mood words in another, that kind of thing.  Kids can illustrate or decorate their finished product, or not.  My students love this activity, and they'll often ask to take book pages home so they can make more poems.

Pyramid: Remember Dick Clark and the $25,000 Pyramid?  When teaching the concept of main idea and details, I stumbled upon this activity.  The kids absolutely love it!  Simply generate a few dozen topics (i.e. state capitals, things that are white, things with an alarm, Disney movies) and offer three clues.  A quick tour of YouTube clips will yield all the topics you need.  Not only does this game help with sorting, but I've found that it also develops their visualization skills.  I had given "cement floor, boxes of Christmas decorations, and a furnace" and they couldn't get it.  Once I told them to close their eyes and picture it, they got it.  Yep, things in a basement!

You have five minutes left in class, so go ahead and tell us.  What are the games you play?

Mary @mzcotillo and Erin @allinoleary