Here are two low-prep activities to try this week to keep your students engaged and to keep your sanity!
- Play the game risk!
In this fun and low-prep game, students decide how many points they will risk before learning the question. Then, students write the answer to the question. The teacher reveals the correct answer. If students get the answer right, they will get those many points. However, they will subtract those points if they get the answer wrong. Each student starts the game with 100 points. They can risk anywhere from 1 to 99 points on the first question. Then, they can risk their total number of points minus 1 point (always leave one point in the bank)
You can use this game to review a story, book chapter, ClipChat, song lyrics, or as a vocabulary review.
Pro tip: To keep the game interesting, I usually ask three to four easy questions, followed by a more challenging question.
My amazing department chair, Christina, suggested playing the game as a team or group activity. I had my students play with a partner, so both partners must agree on how many points they will risk. This option made it even more fun! Some students preferred to work alone, and I allowed them to work individually.
2. Who’s more likely to? By the second semester, I had conducted enough special person interviews and community-building activities for my students to know a fair amount about each other. Now, we can play “Who’s most likely to?”
Students will listen as the teacher reads the scenarios
Each player should have scratch paper and a pen/pencil handy. The teacher will pose the following questions to the group, one at a time(the teacher selects several questions to use).
Everyone will write down who they believe most of the group will say is most likely suited for each scenario.
If you vote with the majority, you earn a point. The question is skipped if the votes are tied, and nobody gets a point. After all questions are read, the winner or winners are the player(s) with the highest point total.
Possible Adaptations:
Have students create future iterations of the game by creating their own questions.
Use the activity as a conversation starter or to get the class talking and sharing surprising stories.