Elem./Middle School Activities

Elementary/Middle School Activities

Almost all of these activities can also be used in the face-to-face classroom

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Guess the Sound https://youtu.be/n1m4h79JZso

This game has been a great way to either begin or end my ZOOM lessons. I simply play the video, then pause it right after the sound is played. The students send me their guesses in chat, and then I press play again to see if they are correct. They love it, and luckily he has several videos like this to choose from!

Guess the State https://bit.ly/3qrv6lJ

The students each had a copy of this map, which I had also uploaded to my PowerPoint lesson. They could ask me yes or no questions in order to guess the mystery state I had chosen. Some sample questions might be:

• Is this state bordered by water?

• Does this state start with the letter M?

• Is this state in the South?

They marked x's on the states that did not fit the criteria based on my answers. They tried to guess using less questions than the day before. Click on link above for a U.S. map.

Boggle

Boggle is another game that easily translates from the classroom to the ZOOM environment. With this other Boogle version students can write their answers on paper, send them in chat, or call them out as they see new words.

Hangman https://bit.ly/3qoJHy1

You can create your own Hangman games [see link above] and share your screen on ZOOM to play them with your class. You can use them to review vocabulary or spelling words, or simply to share a fun message with your class!

Math Bingo

Bingo is another game that can be played on ZOOM as well. I passed out a 5 X 5 Bingo Sheet to each of the students and told them they were going to each create their own Bingo Boards. But, before we could do that, we needed to talk about what numbers could possibly be used. Search Google Images for downloads.

Trivia

You can play this Jeopardy style version or just ask questions from your curriculum.

Hundreds of Trivia Questions for Kids https://thatafterschoollife.com/trivia.html

• Jeopardy Version https://jeopardylabs.com/play/kid-trivia22

• 117 Best History Questions https://icebreakerideas.com/history-trivia/

• Did You Know Facts https://didyouknowfacts.com/facts/

• Over 980 Facts https://www.did-you-knows.com/

Pictionary

Have your student use the whiteboard feature on ZOOM to draw pictures for their classmates to guess what they are. You can use vocabulary words as the clues.

• 150 Fun Pictionary Words https://hobbylark.com/party-games/pictionary-words

• Pictionary Generator https://randomwordgenerator.com/pictionary.php

• 300+ Pictionary Word Ideas for Kids https://wehavekids.com/parenting/Pictionary-Words-For-Kids

• 300+ Pictionary Word-for-Kids https://wehavekids.com/parenting/Pictionary-Words-For-Kids

Scavenger Hunt

Send your students on a scavenger hunt to see who can find the most items on your list. You can make it academic by asking them to find things that relate to your content standards. For example, I might ask them to find examples of right angles, or arrays.

· 20 Ideas for a ZOOM Scavenger Hunt https://bit.ly/2KWBxNa

How Well Do You Know Your Teacher?

Make a PowerPoint with questions about yourself to see how well your students know you!

Would you Rather?

A quick game of Would you Rather is a great way to start or even end a ZOOM call with your class. Students can vote which they would rather do by assigning a number to each item. The students can hold up a 1 or a 2 with their fingers to give their answers.

Mystery Bag

Mystery bag is another fun way to begin or end a Zoom call. It’s also great for practicing inferencing skills! Place a “mystery item” in a paper bag and give the class clues as to what it might be. Students take turns guessing what the mystery item is. This can also be done with a student giving the clues and having the mystery item at their house.

4 Corners

Have students use a personal dry-erase board or a piece of paper and a marker for this game. Students choose a number (1-4 or 1-6), write it on their board, and hold it up for everyone to see. The teacher then rolls a dice and the number she rolls is the number that is out. If the teacher rolls a 4, every student holding up a number 4 will be considered out of that game. Continue until you only have one player left.

Simon Says

Play this just like the original game! The teacher will give the action directions, while the students participate. If students miss the action cue “Simon says,” then they are out. Keep going until you have a winner!

Whiteboard

The whiteboard option inside of ZOOM can be great for creating visual for your students as you teach. The teacher and the students can engage on this whiteboard if you allow it. Try white boarding math problems or have a student use annotation to highlight items such as grammar mistakes in a paper you’re sharing.

20 Questions

20 questions is a game that can be played on ZOOM just like it is played in the classroom. First, think of an object. Then, choose a student to ask a YES or NO question. Have the students continue asking these type of questions. Next, let the students guess the answer at any time in the questioning process. The student to guess the correct answer is the winner and gets to be the one to pick the next object. Students can submit their questions by clicking on the “raise my hand” button in the ZOOM settings.

Go Noodle https://www.gonoodle.com/

Brain breaks are important at school and they are also important on ZOOM calls. The longer the ZOOM call, the more important it is to incorporate a little break. If you are already doing Go Noodle breaks in the classroom, these will bring a sense of familiarity to your students. To do this, simply open up a Go Noodle, share your screen, and exercise. Then watch the fun begin!

Talent Show

This one would take a little bit of planning but it’s a fun way to incorporate some excitement. Tell your students ahead of time that they can plan for a ZOOM Talent Show. You can decide the rules, but I would definitely make a time limit of 30 seconds to 1 minute for their talent demonstration to get through the whole class. After each talent show entry, students can give a “silent cheer” to show their support since they are all muted during the “performance”.

Create Breakout Rooms for Collaboration

You’ll want to go into your account settings to enable this ability before using it with your students. Once enabled, you can have ZOOM either automatically or manually assign students into rooms. Even if it’s automatically assigning, you can swap students out depending on group dynamics (note: it helps to have your students put their name on their ZOOM login). You can even rename the rooms depending on group names or topics before assigning certain students to each room. The great thing about these rooms is that it can create a more collaborative setting than the large whole-group zoom experience. As the moderator you can float around and join rooms to check in on the discussion, post an announcement to all rooms, or even place a time limit on them. Once you ask students to rejoin the whole group and end the breakouts, they’ll have 60-seconds to wrap-up their discussion and rejoin. A powerful way to enable collaboration remotely! Check out the video below for a quick how-to: https://youtu.be/jbPpdyn16sY

Virtual Backgrounds Can Be More Than Just Fun

These can be hilarious but also distracting so some educators have disabled this feature for their group meetings. However, there could be some productive uses of these virtual backgrounds. Some examples of using virtual backgrounds might be re-enacting moments in history with the appropriate backdrop, selecting a geographic landmark they might be studying or “visiting” virtually, or just having students select either a solid green or red background to quickly show if they agree or disagree with a topic (hint: use Grid view for this). No matter the reason, virtual backgrounds can be much more than everyone acting like they are a character from The Office.

Play “I Spy” Backgrounds

If you really want your students to focus on everyone in the classroom, play a game of “I Spy” backgrounds. You can do this either with or without virtual backgrounds, but in essence you are describing things that you notice in the background of someone’s zoom call. Students then quickly have to search all the attendees and see which student’s background is being described. A fun, 5-minute way to get students hooked into their next ZOOM meeting.

Brainstorming Ideas

Gathering feedback in polls is one way to interact with students, but you could also use a shared collaborative space like a Padlet or Ziteboard to have students discuss and brainstorm ideas on shared spaces. You could also combine this with the breakout rooms to have each group brainstorm a topic while you navigate from board to board. A tip here is to create the “walls” or spaces for the students to collaborate on so that you have a live link to what they are working on. Once you’ve split them into groups, share your link to each group to work on.

Embrace the Pause

Silence can be awkward in the classroom. It’s even more awkward when you are looking at more than two dozen teenagers on the screen. That said, it’s important to let students pause and reflect throughout the lesson. Using a countdown timer either on a slide, video or on a tool like Classroom Screen helps students know when they should break from their pause or reflection. As I will mention on my next point, students need breaks from lengthy instruction throughout their day whether they be on a screen or not. If you are hosting a 50-minute lesson online, build in a 5-minute break for students to stretch or get a glass of water to keep their brain active.

Brainbreaks

Taking breaks throughout a lengthy lesson are important whether it be for a reflective pause or just an opportunity to stretch. Using tools like GoNoodle, teachers can lead a virtual dance party in their remote classroom to get the kids up and moving. One word of advice here, if you are playing a video through your system speakers, make sure you don’t have headphones on or adjust the audio source in ZOOM by clicking on the up-carrot symbol next to “Mute” to change your selection of audio output.

Reveal Your Answer

With everything being digital, it’s also nice to take a break from digital as you already have a ZOOM meeting occupying the students’ screens. There are a wide variety of analog strategies you could use with your students by using paper and pencil. One might be sharing a math problem on your screen while students work out the results. Then, countdown and have them reveal their answers to their cameras at the same time. I’ve also seen teachers have success doing a “directed drawing” by pointing their webcam or phone camera down to a sheet a paper while they give instruction and then have students share their creations at the end.

Box of Lies

A big struggle with online learning via video is keeping students focus and attention, especially to the finer details. The game “Box of Lies” was made popular by Jimmy Fallon (see link) and would be a creative way to see if students are paying attention. The premise would be that the teacher or student has an object out of camera view and then has to describe the object. You could do this with all sorts of other ideas from historical figures to using descriptive words in another language.

Directed Drawings

Kids love directed drawings. Art Hub for Kids on YouTube is a great option. The teacher can share their screen while the students make their own drawing. When the drawing is finished, each student can take turns showing their drawing to the class. Extend this project by assigning it as a writing activity to complete at home and bring back to the next ZOOM call to read aloud.

Monster Drawing

Taking that directed drawing [above] to the next level by doing a Monster drawing. In this activity, a teacher or student read aloud descriptions of their drawing but don’t let other students see it. They have to listen for information like “my monster has a rectangle body” or “my monster has 5 eyes, one of them is big and in the middle” to figure out the drawing. This helps kids both with descriptive words but also with listening and translating. In the end, have students show their creations on the screen to see who got closest to the description. This activity could be used in other areas as well such as re-creating a story character or describing a graph in math.

Organize Projects Online

Distance learning doesn’t just have to be about kids filling out digital worksheets or playing online learning games. Students can still do long-term projects either individually or in groups even though they final results may be different than what was done traditionally in the classroom. Using online project management and productivity tools like Trello, MeisterTask or ClickUp can help students struggling with organization and timelines. Coupling those tools with video meeting check-ins can help kids learn how to collaborate and complete a project online over a length of time.

Breakout a Digital BreakOut EDU

BreakoutEDU has always been one of my favorite ways to engage students of all ages by creating a series of clues and challenges that the students have to uncover. For the last couple of years, they’ve been offering Digital BreakOutEDU as an online version of their platform. Teachers could leverage the “breakout” room feature of Zoom with a Digital BreakOutEDU and have teams solve the challenges within a certain timeframe. The great thing about their platform is they have already done most of the heavy lifting in creating the BreakOuts for you based on subject and age level. You can also check out this “Build Your Own” resource if you don’t have the funds to purchase a subscription.

Who’s Who?

A fun non-tech game to play is “Who’s Who?”. In this game, students privately message the teacher some facts about themselves and then the teacher reveals the clues. Students then write down their guesses as to who the person is based on the clues. This could also be turned into “Two truths and a lie” fairly easily. Other adaptations could be students sending clues about historical figures, book characters, etc. that the class has to figure out.

Play BINGO

Who doesn’t love a good game of BINGO? While this isn’t the classic game with numbers, balls, and clever calls, it is using the set-up of Bingo as a way to review facts, geographical locations, scientific terms, or even mathematical applications. Using the Flippity BINGO tool, you create what goes in the squares and then you read out the clues while students fill out their own digital square or by printing a game card. Flippity actually lets you send out the cards via link or QR code as kids can fill in their cards digitally. Then when it’s over, have them share their screen and review their answers to see who wins!

Host a Game Show

Amongst some of the other Flippity tools is the classic Jeopardy-like game show. A great way to review information for a unit or novel study, you can fill in the back-end answers using a Google spreadsheet and then share your screen with the game board. Students can play individually, or you could pre-assign teams and then send them to breakout rooms to discuss what they think the answer might be.

Story Progression

You remember the “telephone game” or maybe the game “one-word stories”? This is a similar concept where you start the story and have random students add the next line. A story could start with “Once upon a time….” and then you could select the student by unmuting their mic. By doing it randomly rather than in a specific order, you cause all students to be thinking of a response rather than just waiting until their turn. Mix it up with story recaps or historical fiction to see what they come up with.

Autodraw Slam

For those of us that are not budding artists or struggle with drawing with a mouse, I’ve long been a fan of Autodraw. This web-based application has you draw out a shape as close as you can while the AI guesses what it might be. When you see an object that is close to what you are drawing, you select it to place into your drawing. One fun thing I’ve tried with this is having students draw their favorite movie scene and then putting the picture on a Padlet wall for everyone to guess the movie.

Digital Flashcards

Flashcards can be pretty boring, especially if you are just using them yourself to practice terms, definitions or maybe even a foreign language. Now that we are remote, it becomes even more challenging to find a partner or group to practice with. Using tools like Fishbowl and Quizlet Live can be leveraged to create fun and energizing ways to have kids practice their terms either as a group or in breakout rooms.

Polygraph Questions

One of the hidden nuggets I always love showing teachers is the Polygraph feature contained within the free, web-based math app called Desmos. This tool acts creates a “Guess who?” like game where 2 students are randomly paired up via a join code you share with them on the screen. You create the cards and student A choses one of the items to be their “mystery item”. As you can upload any image, the mystery item could be a person, place, thing, word, math problem, etc. Then student B has to ask yes or no questions and decide which items they can eliminate. Polygraph creates a private loop between the students and the teacher can see the questions and guesses that each student is making to better check for understanding.

Going on a Picnic

This is a fun game to play with students. It is something like a twist on 20 questions. The player that is “going on a picnic” answers yes/no questions of everyone else. Players are trying to guess what rule was used to pack the basket. For example, the rule could be things that are red in which case someone could ask, “Did you pack strawberries?” in which you would answer yes. If someone asked if you packed bicycles, you would answer “It depends” since some bicycles are red. After players have had a chance to offer ideas of what was packed, you can either allow them to guess or send them to breakout rooms to discuss what they think the rule might be. Once everyone is back together (from their breakout rooms…if you are using those) call on someone to guess the rule or allow them to ask about more items that might be in the basket.

Charades

In this game, the group is divided into at least two teams. One member of a team goes first. His teammates try to guess what is being acted out before the time limit. As the host, send a private chat to him and give him a choice of two different things to act out. He chats you back which one he chooses and begins acting when you say begin. As the host, you are to listen for the team guessing to see if they correctly identify what is being acted out. If correct, that team gets a point and play goes to the other/next team. Here are some ideas if you need some help getting started:

150 Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Charades https://bit.ly/36ykAB3

List of Ideas for Easy and Hard Charades – the Greatest List (120 Ideas)! https://bit.ly/36DHd7n

100 Funny Charades Ideas for a Hilarious Game https://bit.ly/2I7O67r

Two Truths and a Lie

This is a great game to play to get to know everyone better. Each player makes up two truths and a lie about themselves. They may find it easiest to write these down so they’ll remember them when it becomes their turn. When it is a player’s turn, that player shares two truths and the lie (in whatever order they choose). Everyone else is to guess which of the three statements is a lie. Others can hold up 1, 2, or 3 on their fingers, say the number out loud, or type the number in the chat box. Once everyone has voted, the person identifies the lie…and usually clarifies why it is a lie. This game is a lot of fun and requires no real preparation beforehand or props for players.

Dictionary

This game has gone by several names throughout the years. In this game, one player is a dictionary and tells the group a word and then gives everyone else a minute to come up with what could be the definition. Each person is given a chance to share what the definition might be before the dictionary player reveals the real definition. This is a fun way to build vocabulary and introduce students to new words.

If playing with high school students or adults, then consider this twist. The dictionary player privately chats the definition to another player; that player will share the real definition (or a more believable way of saying it) as their guess. After everyone has had a chance to share their guess, they vote on which definition they believe is correct. Those voting for the correct definition get a point. Another player becomes the dictionary and play continues. You may need to establish the rule at the beginning that no one but the dictionary player can search the Internet. If you are not a logophile (a lover of words), then consider using these sites to help you:

• Dictionary of Unusual Words http://phrontistery.info/ihlstart.html

• Weird and Wonderful Words https://www.lexico.com/explore/weird-and-wonderful-words

Scattegories

Who doesn’t love a good game of Scattegories! Playing online through ZOOM can be just as fun. The host needs to share her screen and go to https://swellgarfo.com/scattergories/. Once everyone has a piece of paper and a pen/pencil, the host needs to click the Restart icon; a random letter will appear along with twelve categories. When the host clicks the Play icon, the categories are revealed, and countdown begins. When the time is up, have each person share what they have for each category. Players get a point for each answer that is not duplicated by anyone, but is acceptable by everyone.

Costume or Hat Day: Ask students to dress up as their favorite character or wear a silly hat. Students who are shy on camera might also prefer wearing a hat or mask during video chats. Students can also dress up related to their spark!

Create a Video: Send students a video where you explain your spark or show it in action. For example, love baking? Show students how to make your favorite recipe!

Zoom In: Find a photo that represents your spark. ZOOM into the photo and have students guess your spark. Keep zooming out until they figure it out. You can also have students take a photo of something from a weird angle or extreme close up and have the class guess the object.

Current Events: Share a news story or real-world video related to your spark. For example, if your spark is space, you can share a video of a recent NASA mission.

Tell a Joke: Who doesn’t love a good joke? Students can take turns telling their favorite jokes or share via the chat box.

Guess the Baby: Parents provide a baby picture and the class needs to guess who it is.

Quick Share: As soon as student log on, share a prompt like “what would you bring on a trip to Mars?”. Have a quick round of sharing with 10 seconds per student or share in the chat box.

Secret Word: Put one student back into the waiting room of the video meeting. Tell the class a secret word, and then bring the student back. Classmates give clues to help the student guess the word.

Guess the Sound: Play a sound and ask students to guess the object. Here is a great video to use. Take it further with a STEM musical instrument challenge.

Writing Warm-Up: Have students answer a thought-provoking prompt as a quick writing warm-up. Students can write responses in the chat box or read to the class. Here is an option for a random question generator.

Trip ABCs: “I went on a trip, and I took ____.” The first person says a word that starts with A, the second person says the A item, then does B . Each turn, the person repeats all the other items in ABC order, then adds 1 more item, depending on the alphabet.

Class Story: “Once upon a time…” The teacher randomly calls on a student to complete the sentence to start the story. The next person provides another sentence to continue the story. Keep going until everyone has a chance!

Two-Minute Talent Show: Whether singing, using screen share to draw, or having their pet do a trick, ask students to share a quick talent!

Memory Game: Place 20 objects on a tray and take a photo. Share the image on your screen for 30 seconds, stop sharing, then give students a minute to record as many objects they can. Another option is to create a digital tray with clip-art images.

Learn to Draw: Show a YouTube video on how to draw simple objects and ask students to follow along. Here is a great site with video links.

Spin the Wheel Activities: Create your own wheel of activities using this free website. Spin the wheel and have individual students or the whole class complete the challenge like do 10 jumping jacks, find something orange, or draw a monster.

Guess the Disney Character: Similar to ZOOM in the game described above, use this website for students to try to guess the Disney character.

Tongue Twisters: Send students a tongue twister to practice. Have them read the tongue twister to the class and with the class

Good News Sharing: Read out loud an article from Good News Network to bring some positive vibes to the class. Students can share reactions.

Never Have I Ever: Get to know your students with this game by having students create a “I Have” or “I Never” signs. Teacher reads a statement, and everyone holds up a sign saying whether they have or have never done the action. Statements can be silly and fun like “Never have I ever used someone else's toothbrush.” or “Never have I ever sneaked desert before dinner.” Tons of great ideas found here.

MUTE-iny: There is always the one person who forgets to un-mute! In this game, you will put yourself on mute and say a sentence really slow. Have students guess in the comments what you are trying to say.

Guess the Riddle: “What has a face and two hands but no arms or legs?” Post a riddle of the day and have student’s private message you their guess. Reveal the answer!

Tomato Ketchup: One student is the detective. They turn on their mic and put their head down so they can't see the screen. Everyone else is muted. The teacher selects a student who switches their mic on and says 'tomato ketchup' in a funny or disguised voice. The detective has to guess the student!