According to Center for Responsive Schools, "an energizer is a quick whole-group activity that can be done anywhere, anytime, and with minimal materials and setup. In just a few minutes, energizers can add purposeful play to a lesson or transition. There are many different types and purposes for energizers. Some activities help calm a group down while others can build energy. There are activities that can create connections between people and those that will support an academic skill. An energizer may check several of these boxes, too."

To read more about energizers, take a look at: Purposeful Play: How Energizers Support Learning for Students and Adults - Center for Responsive Schools (crslearn.org) 

1. Know what you and your students need at the moment.

Ask yourself:

• What is the overall mood and energy level of my class? 

• Do you need an activity that will raise or lower their energy level?

Pick an energizer that appropriately fits your students' needs based on their behavior.

2. Model how to do each energizer. 

Plan ahead.

Ask yourself:

• What are the skills involved?

• Is the activity appropriate for the age group?

• How will you teach it?

3. Take your time. 

When teaching more complex energizers, learn to scaffold by introducing the components slowly. You can do the complete energizer eventually, but make sure to take the time to allow your students to get comfortable with it in pieces first.

4. Make each energizer your own. 

After you get comfortable teaching energizers, try to have fun with one by making it your own. Learn to be comfortable enough to be innovative and creative with the energizer by making adaptations for it that fit your class.

5. Invite the children’s ideas. 

Allowing you students to create suggestions can increase their level of fun during energizers. It also tells than that you value their ideas when you try to put them into place for them to do.

6. Repeat the children’s favorites. 

Get to know what your children's likes and dislikes are, especially when it comes to energizers. Learn what their favorite energizers are and drop ones that they don't tend to get invested in.

It is also important to understand when energizers are good to repeat, and when you need to add new ones in the classroom. being able to read your students and understand their needs is important in maintaining a good balance in the classroom.

7. Find ways to include reluctant students. 

While you might have some students who aren't very willing to participate in energizers, it is important to try to give them the opportunity to participate. 

Some students might be more shy or reluctant. Try to find a way to make accommodations for those students so they can feel comfortable and interested enough to participate with the rest of the class.

8. Write out songs and chants. 

When doing energizers that require speaking parts, it is best to provide any lyrics, chants, or lines that you want your students to say. This helps all children feel comfortable when participating and elevates their desire to participate since they can feel more confident.

You can display the words by:

• Having a slideshow.

  • • You can easily make a slideshow that contains content for every energizer you do with your students to pull up at any time.

• Providing a handout to your students.

  • • You can hand out sheets with the words being said for a particular energizer.

    • Or you can make booklets for your students that have every energizer you do in them that you are able to add to.

• Write it out of the board.

9. Join in and SING. 

Join them! By participating in energizers with your students, it allows you to build a strong sense of community within your classroom. By seeing you have fun doing the energizer, your students will reflect your behavior. It can also serve as a sense of encouragement to participate.

10. Plan how to end lively energizers. 

To settle children back down, consider using:

• Quiet signals

• Quiet countdowns

• A rhyming chant 

If you anticipate that students may struggle with settling down, try:

• Using reminding language to prompt them beforehand.

  • • Example: “What will it look like when we move back to our seats?” 

• Using calm but firm redirecting language when students aren’t able to settle themselves.

  • • Example: “Freeze! Return to your seats quietly. We’ll try this again tomorrow.”

• Using reinforcing language to name positive behaviors that you see when children regroup quickly following an energizer. 

  • Example: “You returned to your seats so quickly and quietly! I saw you using the strategies we’ve practiced for moving safely in our classroom.”

You can explore more at: Energizers! Tips for Using Energizers | Responsive Classroom. This list was made with the help of the website above.

The teacher picks a topic that is relevant to the class discussion. The teacher brings in a bag full of random objects to be passed out to students. The teacher then explains that the activity is to explain how the object is like their topic of discussion because of blank. The students go one at a time and stand up when it is their turn. Have them present the object to the class and say their line then sit back down when they are done. If they are struggling, have them phone a friend in the class to assist them. 

Example:

• ___ like being a teacher because ___.

  • • Seeds are like being a teacher because we help grow our students’ minds to help them flourish.

    • A jar of marbles is like being a teacher because we are full of love from our students.

• ___ is like a friend because ___.

  • • A lamp is like a friend because they light up your life.

    • A book is like a friend because they open up to you.

• ___ is like a math lesson because ___.

  • • A banana is like a math lesson because you can peel away your uncertainty and find the answer.

    • Sunglasses are like a math lesson because I can't see the correct answer without some help.

This energizer is good for grades 3-6.

This energizer starts off with the teacher picking a category. Tell your students what the selected category is. You can start off with a word or a student can. Once the first word is put down, have your students think of a word that fits into the category as well as start with the last letter of the previous word that was used. When they think of a word, they can stand up and share what word they chose. Once picking a word, the student will remain standing, and it will continue until the entire class is standing up together. Students may not repeat words during this energizer and must wait until the teacher has written the given word on the whiteboard before continuing. This energizer can be scaffolded by the category to make it appropriate to the grade level.

This energizer is good for grades 3-6.

In this energizer, the teacher begins by asking their students to close their eyes and imagine in their heads a specific scenery that they selected. This could be a classroom, park, or forest for example. Give the students a couple of seconds to visualize the scene and take note of what they see when they think of the specific location. You can either go around the room or call on students randomly based on hand raises and have each student share one detail from their imagined scenery. In the image above, some examples from the imagined classroom my class created is a bookshelf, beanbag, and fairy lights. By drawing on the whiteboard, the energizer becomes more fun and engaging for students since it allows them the opportunity to draw their details themselves on the whiteboard. That way, they can see the scenery comes together more and more. Every student, including the teacher, should add at least one detail they imagined to the scenery. By the end of the energizer, every student will feel special as they contributed to a large masterpiece created in a sense of unity.

This energizer is good for grades K-6.

If you want an energizer that keeps students stationary, you can do the wave. Have the students all stand in a circle and then do a movement. One at a time, the students will all go around and repeate that movement. Once the movement returns to the person who started it, the next person the circle creates a new movement which proceeds around the circle in the same way. Continue the procedure this way until all of the students have had the opportunity to come up with a movement of their own. Have students try not to repeat movements that have already been done. This energizer works on rhythm, self-control, and sequencing. 

This energizer is good for grades 3-6.

This is another stationary energizer. Everyone stays in their seats. The teacher begins by telling the class "I'm going on a picnic and I am bringing..." Students try to discover what can be taken on a hypothetical picnic. The teacher comes up with a rule for things that can go on the picnic and the students' goal is to try to guess the rule. The only hints given are by saying "you can come" if it fits the rule, or "you can't come" if it does not. This will help students practice their cognitive skills like focusing, remembering, and thinking flexibly to determine a common trait all of the yes answers have. When students think they have it, they can make a guess.

Some examples you can do are:

• Only things with double letters can go on the picnic (eggs, carrots, noodles, etc.)

• Only yellow things can go on the picnic (bananas, the sun, dandelions, etc.)

• Only things you can eat can go on the picnic (apples, oranges, pancakes, etc.)

• Only things bigger than a person can go on the picnic (elephants, houses, the moon, etc.)

• Only things that are spelled with five letters can go on the picnic (apple, grass, honey, etc.)

This energizer is good for grades 3-6.

This energizer can have students in a circle or at their desk. The starting number is 16. The teacher will start counting from 1 to 16. After the leader stops at 16, all of the students will shake their right hand 16 times, then their left hand, then their right foot, and then their left foot. After that, leader yells "Cut!" and the new number becomes 8. The teacher counts again going 1 to 8 and students will shake their limbs again. Cut in half again to 4, then 2, and then 1 following the same procedure.

This energizer is good for grades 2-5.

This energizer can also be used as a good tool to explain math procedures. The teacher will be the captain who calls out to their passengers (the students). The captain says "The boat is sinking. get into boats of (number)." The passengers must group themselves into whatever number the captain says. Anyone who is not in a group of that number must answer a question of the teacher's choosing. This is typically about the student themself and not academic, but it could be if you want to. If doing this in a math setting, you can have them answer a math question. You can also have students get out of the game. This can be done by either having them "sink" if they aren't in a boat and sitting out (they can help count groups to make sure the numbers are correct like helpful crew members or just go sit). Or, you can give them a question and they can only stay in the game if they answer a math question right (or another question if you want to prep for an assessment). The captain will repeat this process over and over again until you reach a stopping point, whether it's a certain amount of rounds, a time limit, or until you run out of students. The best way to end it is by choosing an ending that you think will work best for your class.

This energizer is good for grades 1-4.

Students will arrange themself in a large circle. Remind them to make sure that there is enough space between them and tell them not to jump into anyone or anything. Start off by giving a direction saying, "Imagine you are..." Then, the person next to you will at it out. After they act it out, they will tell the person next to them to imagine doing something. Go around until it goes back to you. Examples are: imagine you are running in place while being chased by a bear, imagine you are playing the drums, imagine you are popcorn popping, imagine you are swimming away from a shark, imagine you are petting a dog.

This energizer is good for grades K-6.

A great calming energizer is yoga. The teacher can lead by using simple yoga poses for students to hold for a minute or 30 seconds. You can always start out small in the beginning and work your way up in length of time. This is a great way for your students to calm down, or a good way for them to prepare for the day ahead. This can be used at any point in the day as it offers a peaceful environment at any given moment. During your morning routine, it can help your students stretch and be ready physically for the class ahead. In the middle of the day, it can turnover high-energy and chaos and transform it into a better state of tranquility. At the end of the day it can help calm student s down before heading home to close out the day. Some examples of things students can do are: reaching for the sky, doing the runners’ stretch, the tree pose, downward dog, kid's cradle, or rotate their ankles, wrists and necks.

This energizer is good for grades K-6.

Students can either stay at their seat or form a circle. Have the students count up as far as they can without using the number seven or multiples of seven. Instead of saying seven, they have to use another word, such as a noun, number, or letter. The first one to make a mistake loses resets the game. 

To control time, you can:

• Play until a certain amount of failed attempts is reached. For example, you can draw heart lives (like for a video game) and erase a heart for each mistake until it's game over.

• You can set a timer for whatever time seems fit for your day or intention for length of energizer.

• Try to reach a certain number. For example, you can stop at 350 if that's the highest multiple you have done or if you have 26 students in your class, you can have them go until 182 so they each get the same amount of turns. 

This game is great to go over multiplication facts and can be adjusted for any number. You can make the energizer fit the needs of the lesson that you are teaching them. It serves as a great review game, but the students view it as a fun game without focusing on it as a lesson aid.

Example: 1 2 3 4 5 6 three 8 9 10 11 12 13 mouse 15 16 chair 18 19 20 dog 22 23 P 25 26 and so on.

This energizer is good for grades 3-6.