I need a few fresh Ideas on active games that we can play in the classroom to take up 5-10 minutes time when there's really no time to start something new. We play "around the world" with our spelling words, multiplication relays, and then sometimes we might just play the "Seven Up Thumbs Up" to kill about 5 min at the end of the day. What do you do? I teach 3rd grad.
My math teacher taught us this cool activity that takes up a few minutes. It's called Number Around the Room (I think). You just choose a number, say 15, and each student says a fact about 15. A few examples... A foot plus 3 inches is 15 A dime and a nickel is 15 A dozen plus three is 15 10 plus 5 is 15 etc etc. Each student must say something different about the number. Does that make sense?? I thought it was a pretty neat filler that was a good practice.
"Children's Quiz" Give them a category (foods, places you go, animals, transportation, literally ANY category) and a letter... they come up with as many things beginning with that letter that fit the category... I usually have kids raise their hands, and I will call on someoneone to answer... if you don't have an answer, or your answer is already said, your hand goes down until you have a new answer... kindal ike playing Scatergorres.
Mad libs are big hit in my room. I also have some cards (about the only thing I made in college that I actually use!) that have numbers and statments. For example one child starts with Who has the product of 3 and 8? The child with 24 says "I have 24, who has the value of 8 in 1,843?", etc. They are pretty easy to make, I've made them for vocab, facts, etc.
Transition Game I like play 'name that animal' with my students. I'll describe an animal one characteristic at a time and the kids raise their hands when they want to guess. I also like to do quiz them on geography by pointing to a map to see who can answer the fastest. I hope these help or spawn a few new ideas.
Christy - I tried to make that game and kept messing up the cards so we never returned to the beginning or something, I can't remember. Then I saw the game in a box (just for math) - it's called Zip Around and each card has four different level problems. The kids love it. I rarely have 5 minutes when all kids are done and it isn't time for the next lesson. As they finish their work they read (I have 1500 fiction titles alone) or work on the spelling unit. We do play a lot of games together, though. If they all have 10 minutes I give them free time - maybe twice a week. They think this is a huge gift.
I learned about playing Hangman with the kids from my lead teacher during my student teaching. I used it last year when I was subbing 1st grade long term, and am even using it in my kindergarten classroom this year. They love it, and you can always make the words harder for your 3rd graders...(we use word wall words mainly). Shannon
