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Teachers hope to inspire a love of learning in all their students. They work to foster intrinsic motivation to help students become more productive and enthusiastic learners. Students need to take ownership of their learning, of course. But sometimes, kids just want stickers or a free recess for their efforts. Who can blame them? Everyone likes to be rewarded.

Types of classroom rewards

It's essential to clearly define classroom rewards by explaining how and why students earn them. Do students receive the prize individually or as a whole classroom community? Is the incentive something to earn over time? For rewards tied to effort, what steps are involved? When students need to complete levels of learning or score a certain number of points, make sure they know ahead of time so they know what they're working to earn.

What about adding immediate rewards as a part of the classroom reward system? It's always a great idea to reward awesome behavior or clever problem-solving in the moment. Walk around the classroom and deliver small tokens or treats to deserving students to let them know you recognize their positive choices and good work ethic.

What about the pros and cons of using rewards? Teachers might feel like rewards equal bribes or that students may only work for prizes. Rewards could bring short-term results or even a sense of entitlement for some students. There are times when those points are valid, for sure. However, there are many positives to using a reward system, including boosted self-esteem, appropriate behaviors, increased effort, and assignments completed on time. Rewards are a good source of feedback as well.

Incentives that work for one student may not work for another. Options are key. Classroom rewards have to be something that kids actually want. They also have to be something teachers are willing and able to provide. Just because a student wants to earn lunch with the teacher in the classroom doesn't mean it can happen regularly. Lunchtimes aren't just for teachers to eat. Those precious minutes also involve grading, parent communication, tutoring, making copies, and many other tasks. Allowing that student to sit with a friend for the day might be a more realistic option. Get creative to find classroom reward ideas that work for both the students and the teacher.

Free rewards for students

Who doesn't love free rewards? Classroom rewards that don't cost money are still effective. Free incentives are crucial for students who need extrinsic rewards in crowded classrooms. Take a look at this list of free rewards for students that just require some time and creativity.

Fun classroom reward ideas that won't break the bank

Fun classroom rewards don't have to be expensive. Many stores have "dollar sections." There are also entire stores dedicated to inexpensive trinkets. When purchasing prizes to reward students' successes and efforts, look for items that give the most bang for the buck. Stickers are a great example of products with many in one package, and students at every grade level love stickers. Consider buying a few stamps and scented ink pads to leave fun rewards in workbooks and consumables. If your school doesn't have limitations on paper and copies, print coloring sheets, word searches, or bookmarks to use as rewards. Candy and snacks are possibilities, but those should be used with caution. Know the allergies and any food limitations for students in class before offering those.

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20 Creative and Affordable Classroom Rewards for Stu... | Reflex

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Teachers hope to inspire a love of learning in all their students. They work to foster intrinsic motivation to help students become more productive...

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15 Free Digital Tools to Boost Students' Engagement Online

A review of digital tools and ideas for teachers to support formative assessment in online classrooms

Engaging students online is nothing like engaging students in physical classrooms. It can be challenging, especially in times of crisis as students have to deal with more stress and anxiety.

For many learners, online learning is a new experience. And even when they have the best intentions, they can easily get distracted and lose interest. This can cause a higher number of students dropping out of school or resiting classes. Also, students with special needs and learning disorders are more likely to feel lost and disengage.

While engaging students online can be more challenging, the learning experience can be as good or even better than in the traditional physical classroom. With the proper planning and tools, remote teaching can be as effective as in-person teaching.

To save you time, effort, and money, I have compiled a list of the top free tools to increase your students' engagement online. No matter if you are a newbie or an expert, these tools are the best in their market and are free, or almost.

This post will tell you everything you need to know about from the best online tools and resources for engaging students online.

Collaborative Annotation

Diigo is a social bookmarking with excellent organization tools. The main value of Diigo is how it increases both students and teacher productivity while making it fun. Teachers can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks and access to premium functionalities for free ( apply here).

You can create your personal library in the cloud for each of your courses, with links, pages, notes, pictures, and invite students so that they can access it and annotate. Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums. Students can then collaborate and all read the same article and discuss synchronously right on the page.

You can also provide feedback to students' work and writings by posting sticky notes and making screen captures and marking it up. Diigo provides powerful search capabilities.

You can find anything easily, even your own annotations. Diigo also provides excellent organization capabilities, with both tagging and lists, to suit different needs.

Evernote is one of my favorite apps for learning. Is one powerful tool. Evernote is a note-taking app that can do much more than just taking notes. Like diigo, Evernote lets you save any content, forever. With Evernote you can do almost everything you want, is like a second brain. From a simple checklist to writing business plans, from class note-taking to academic research, from organizing your ideas to organizing your team.

Evernote is compatible with all kinds of devices and operating systems, and it is accessible also through the web app. You can share with your students complete notebooks, composed of unique resources, and organize it with tags. Guests are allowed to annotate and collaborate if you give them permission, or just read if you restrict it.

Evernote has a free version that's quite complete for students. But the premium version is accessible and gives you the power to add notes to pdf files, do a text search on all your content, save and access revision history of your notes, send yourself emails with notes and integrate other apps like google drive. For a quick guide on how to use Evernote, you can read this article.

Notion started as a collaborative document editor. But you can do many other things. Students can use it to take and share notes in class or to organize their tasks with to-do lists.

But as an educator Notion can be the perfect workspace for your syllabi, notes, assignments, grades, and much more. You can create your course syllabi and share it with your students or create a wiki for the class.

Notion offers built-in templates that make student and teachers' life easier. Students can find tools for building grade calculators, personal budget, job applications. While teachers can adopt ready-to-use templates for lesson plans, schedules, and class directory.

Notion is free for both students and educators. With an official institutional email address, you get access to unlimited block storage and no file upload limit.

Hypothes.is is not like any other annotation tool. If I have to be honest, is one of my favorites. Not only it's a remarkable tool, but it is also open-source and completely free. Hypothes.is goes beyond traditional digital annotation, they enable sentence-level note-taking or discussion on classroom reading, news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation, and more. The beautiful about it is that it promotes web literacy and digital citizenship in students, more than any other app.

Educators need to create an account and then send the registration link to their students. Students will then be able to access the readings assignments and start annotating. You can also create private annotation groups. So, for example, if you want your students to work in smaller groups, you can send them special links. This link will also serve as the group home page with a list of members and texts annotated by the group. You can also link to a stream of annotations created by group members from the group home page.

Hypothes.is has a Chrome browser extension and is compatible with almost all Learning Management Systems (Canva, and Moodle included). For a quick guide on how to use it in your classroom, go here.

Visual collaboration and communication tools are also a brilliant way to make your online classes more dynamic and to motivate your students to be more active. There are several apps for doing this, but Mural and Miro are my favorite.

Visual Collaboration

A digital workspace for visual collaboration. As an educator, you can apply for a free facilitator account and start collaborating with other educators and students. With the educator account, you can have up to 10 team members (which can edit, facilitate and create murals) and 20 guests (only for collaborating to murals you give them access to) to your mural spaces. With Mural you can conduct virtual brain-storming sessions, use canvas layouts and frameworks designed by experts for different activities (business model, mind-mapping, empathy map, many others). you can break out your classroom in groups so that students' teams can collaborate in different workspaces. You can apply for a Mural educator account here. Here you can find a tutorial on how to use Mural for education.

Similar to Mural, Miro is an app that acts as a virtual whiteboard for team collaboration. Educators and students can apply for a free education account that has the same functionalities as the pro version. Even if you don't apply for the education account, you can create your free account and have up to 3 whiteboards to play with. You can invite an unlimited number of viewers and have small teams collaborating in your whiteboards. Otherwise, with the educational plan, you can invite and collaborate with as many students as you want and create unlimited whiteboards. To apply for an education account, you just need to apply here.

Engagement and gamification

Games are by far the most effective way to keep students engaged in learning, off and online. There is nothing more gratifying for learners than getting rewards and recognition when they work hard for it. Not only games are fun, but they facilitate learning. There are plenty of apps available for educators (and anyone else) for creating challenges, evaluations, and assignments while leaving the boring side apart. These two are my favorite.

The most famous interactive quiz platform is Kahoot, a free student-response that uses many gamification techniques to engage students' participation and enhance learning. With Kahoot, you can both host live quizzes and self-paced challenges for out-of-class review. You can play Kahoot games in single mode or in team mode and offer plenty of fun features to stimulate students to play and learn. Kahoot offers a basic free plan where you can invite up to 50 players, host online games, play, and create as many Kahoots as you want and have assessments of reports ready to download. Premium plans start at 5 USD per month and you get more amazing features and more players.

With sli.do you can empower your students to ask questions, vote in polls, and be a part of the lecture by using a simple Q&A and polling tool. Sli.do is a great tool for promoting active learning in online classes. It allows you to involve your students in your lecture and give them the freedom to express their opinion via live polls, quizzes, brainstorming. The possibilities are vast.

With polls, you can learn if your lecture's content resonates with your students. You can also use them to drive meaningful discussions in your class.

Use quizzes to find out how much your students remember from your lectures. Use them to recap the content from the last lecture. Or motivate your students to pay attention during your lecture by hosting a quiz at the end.

Use the questions feature to collect students' questions throughout your lecture and address them as they come in or in a dedicated Q&A session at the end of your class. You and your students can upvote and provide their answers in real-time, making peer-learning possible.

Another awesome feature is the switcher app. With Slido Switcher, you can display polls or questions on top of your presentation using your smartphone as a remote control. Whether you use PowerPoint, Keynote, or Prezi, our Switcher app allows you to switch seamlessly between your presentation and Slido.

Sli.do offers an education package starting at $5 per month. But you can also use the free version for free for up to 100 participants.

Have you ever played jeopardy? Well, Factile is a free learning platform that lets teachers create engaging Jeopardy-style quiz games for the classroom. You can create and personalize your own game boards or use pre-made quizzes shared by the community. With Factile you can either host jeopardy games, regular multiple choice quizzes, memory games, and create study flashcards to improve students' learning proficiency. As Kahoot, you can play Factile in teams or individually. With the free version you can create up to 5 teams for each game and you can host up to 3 games. For as little at 5 USD per month, you can play and create as many games as you want and have over 50 teams. The premium account offers other amazing features like buzzer mode, play memory and choice games, play, and share flashcards.

Interactive Activities

Online assessment and homework need not be boring. There are plenty of tools you can use to overcome the physical distancing and the lack of face-to-face interaction between you and your students. Collaboration and social co-creation are possible online thanks to technology. These are my favorite/

A free platform that allows you to curate and organize content from different platforms to save and share with students, colleagues, and friends. You need to create a collection - something like hashtags topics on Instagram - and students can contribute to adding text, pdf, videos, URLs, images, and Flipgrid shorts. These are brilliant ways for students to express their learning. Apart from this, the teacher can encourage creativity among the learners by inviting students to approach the assessment the way they want to. The idea behind Wakelet is to curate content like you will do for blogs (like Medium) or magazines. You can synthesize a bunch of different content, filter out the noise, and keep what is valuable in one sole collection to better communicate about a specific concept or topic. Wakalet is completely free and its potential is amazing.

Flipgrid is a free social learning app to create and share short and exceptional videos. As an educator, you have free access to the app and you can create different grids - classrooms - and topics of discussion. Each grid has a unique code that you can share with your students so they can access the topics and the videos being posted by the professors and classmates. It is a magnificent tool for reflective learning and for building solid learning communities within your classes. As an educator you can post discussion prompts and students may respond with short videos, whether they are learning in class or at home. Flipgrid is completely free. For more info on how to use it, read the beginner's guide here.

Backchannel discussion

Backchannel discussions are a great way for learners to have an on-topic conversation during a lecture. It is an effective way to keep your students engaged during an online session and continue the conversation afterward.

Unlike quiz tools like Kahoot, backchannels are not based on competition or gamification. The aim is not to test students' knowledge. Instead, a backchannel is an informal way for students to interact with the educator and their classmates in the form of an online forum designed to complement classroom activity.

Initially conceived for business team communication and project management, slack can also be an outstanding tool for education. From planning and teaching curriculum to managing student services, slack offers amazing functionalities for both students and educators. You can create one workspace for each course, each with a set of channels for classroom work, discussion, group projects, and office hours. Students can use channels to post clarifying questions and comments throughout the lesson, and their classmates can use emoji reactions to second questions or show support for comments. Slack is compatible with Zoom, so when running a virtual classroom on Zoom you can directly access slack channels and questions. You can use threads to organize smaller group discussions around specific topics during the class. Slack is free, but for a better experience and more control over your interactions, and data premium plan is a better option. Slack offers 85% discount on the premium plan to education institutions. You can apply here.

Padlet is a productivity software and we are pretty keen on making your work life easier. It's essentially an online bulletin board, something like a notice board. It is an outstanding tool for making classes more interactive as it has a wide range of features such as sharing and collaborating documents, videos, post. But the best of it is their Backchannel option.

Padlet Backchannel provides a familiar messaging interface for both synchronous and asynchronous class discussions. You can use Padlet for student conversations during a lecture, for brainstorming ideas, or for Q&A session. You can make your Backchannels private, password-protected, secret, or fully public. You can also make them read-only or add admins. Another exceptional functionality is their Profanity filter that replaces bad words with emojis. You can also turn on discussion moderation and approve all messages before they show up for other readers.

While Padlet is not for free, it is still accessible at 99$/year per educator and includes unlimited student accounts.

Video conferencing and virtual classroom

Video conferencing is one of the best ways to get in touch with your students remotely. It's a brilliant tool for having engaging conversations and lectures where you need interaction and peer discussion.

The most common software for videoconferencing used by businesses and educators. Zoom has a freemium service. It's great for hosting webinars, meetings, group collaborations, and calls. With a free account, you can invite up to 100 participants, have face-to-face interviews, and up to 40 minutes of group conference. With the current pandemic situation, Zoom has removed the 40 minute limit for educators. You just need to create an account with your institutional email address.

An alternative open source web conferencing system for online learning. The goal of the project is to provide remote students with a high-quality online learning experience. BigBlueButton is amazing because you can have the same Zoom pro functionalities for free. The software is really user-friendly. BBB has a whiteboard that you can share with your participants, you can breakout rooms for team collaboration and create polls during your virtual lecture. Here you can find a user guide on how to use BigBlueButton for education.
Another great software is google meet, which you can access for free if you have a google classroom account. Also, you have which offers amazing functionalities with its pro version.
Final words

While engaging students online can be more challenging, the learning experience can be as good or even better than in the traditional physical classroom. With the proper planning and tools, remote teaching can be as effective as in-person teaching.

You can anticipate and prevent students' disengagement and procrastination by implementing these tools.

Engaging students online is not much more difficult than engaging with them in a physical classroom. Online methods provide a wide range of alternatives to promote active learning and teamwork.

Ready to shift to Online Education? Receive monthly tips and tricks on how to make your online classes more engaging.

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15 Free Digital Tools to Boost Students' Engagement Online

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A review of digital tools and ideas for teachers to support formative assessment in online classrooms Engaging students online is nothing like engaging students in physical classrooms. It can be challenging, especially in times of crisis as students have to deal with more stress and anxiety.

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Kids love riddles. They often see them as a very intellectual challenge that can be solved by thinking outside of the square. Below are 60 riddles that your kids will love to try and solve, and you can use them as icebreakers if needed.

FUN WORD PROBLEMS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

60 GREAT RIDDLES STUDENTS WILL LOVE - (ANSWERS BELOW)

1. What goes up and down stairs without moving?

2. Give it food and it will live; give it water and it will die.

3. What can you catch but not throw?

4. I run, yet I have no legs. What am I?

5. Take one out and scratch my head, I am now black but once was red.

6. Remove the outside, cook the inside, eat the outside, throw away the inside.

7. What goes around the world and stays in a corner?

8. What gets wetter the more it dries?

9. The more there is, the less you see.

10. They come at night without being called and are lost in the day without being stolen.

11. What kind of room has no windows or doors?

12. I have holes on the top and bottom. I have holes on my left and on my right. And I have holes in the middle, yet I still hold water. What am I?

13. I look at you; you look at me, I raise my right, you raise your left. What is this object?

14. It has no top or bottom but it can hold flesh, bones, and blood all at the same time. What is this object?

15. The more you take the more you leave behind.

16. Light as a feather, there is nothing in it; the strongest man can't hold it for much more than a minute.

17. As I walked along the path I saw something with four fingers and one thumb, but it was not flesh, fish, bone, or fowl.

18. What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?

19. I went into the woods and got it, I sat down to seek it, I brought it home with me because I couldn't find it.

20. What can fill a room but takes up no space?

21. It is weightless, you can see it, and if you put it in a barrel it will make the barrel lighter?

22. No sooner spoken than broken. What is it?

23. Only two backbones and thousands of ribs.

24. Four jolly men sat down to play, And played all night till the break of day. They played for cash and not for fun, With a separate score for every one. When it came time to square accounts, They all had made quite fair amounts. Now, not one has lost and all have gained, Tell me, now, this can you explain?

25. Jack and Jill are lying on the floor inside the house, dead. They died from lack of water. There is shattered glass next to them. How did they die?

26. Why don't lobsters share?

27. A barrel of water weighs 20 pounds. What must you add to it to make it weigh 12 pounds?

28. Big as a biscuit, deep as a cup, Even a river can't fill it up. What is it?

29. Clara Clatter was born on December 27th, yet her birthday is always in the summer. How is this possible?

30. He has married many women but has never married. Who is he?

31. If a rooster laid a brown egg and a white egg, what kind of chicks would hatch?

32. If you have it, you want to share it. If you share it, you don't have it. What is it?

33. You can't keep this until you have given it.

34. Take off my skin, I won't cry, but you will. What am I?

35. What book was once owned by only the wealthy, but now everyone can have it? You can't buy it in a bookstore or take it from the library.

36. What can go up and come down without moving?

37. What do you fill with empty hands?

38. What do you serve that you can't eat?

39. What do you throw out when you want to use it but take in when you don't want to use it?

40. What goes up and never comes down?

41. What has a foot on each side and one in the middle?

42. What has to be broken before it can be used?

43. What kind of coat can be put on only when wet?

44. What question can you never answer "yes" to?

45. What's the greatest worldwide use of cowhide?

46. Which is correct to say, "The yolk of the egg are white?" or "The yolk of the egg is white?"

47. You answer me, although I never ask you questions. What am I?

48. I am taken from a mine and shut up in a wooden case, from which I am never released, and yet I am used by almost every person. What am I?

49. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?

50. The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?

51. I'm not alive, but I can grow; I don't have lungs, but I need air; I don't have a mouth, but water kills me. What am I?

52. I'm tall when I'm young and short when I'm old. What am I?

53. I am always hungry. I must always be fed. The finger I touch will soon turn red. What am I?

54. I am a word of letters three, add two and fewer there will be. What am I?

55. What has keys but can't open locks?

56. I'm not alive, but I can die; I'm not solid, but I can melt. What am I?

57. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?

58. You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you don't see a single person on the boat. Why?

59. I'm not alive, but I can grow; I don't have lungs, but I need air; I don't have a mouth, but water kills me. What am I?

60. What has keys but can't open locks?

Video riddles for students

How do Riddles improve Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills in Students?

Riddles can be valuable tools for helping students become better thinkers and problem solvers in several ways:

Critical Thinking: Riddles often require students to think critically, analyze information, and draw logical conclusions. They encourage students to examine the problem from different angles, identify patterns, and make connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of information.

Creativity: Riddles often have creative and imaginative solutions. Encouraging students to think creatively helps them develop the ability to generate innovative ideas and approaches to problem-solving.

Deductive Reasoning: Riddles often provide limited information and require students to use deductive reasoning to fill in the gaps and arrive at a solution. This helps students practice valuable problem-solving skills used in various real-life situations.

Attention to Detail: Riddles often include subtle clues that require students to pay close attention to detail. This skill can benefit many aspects of life, such as reading comprehension, data analysis, and critical reading.

Patience and Persistence: Some riddles can be challenging and may not have an immediate solution. Students learn the value of patience and persistence when faced with complex problems. They understand that not all problems can be solved quickly and that it's essential to keep trying and refining their approach.

Communication Skills: Solving riddles often involves discussing ideas and solutions with peers. This promotes effective communication and teamwork as students collaborate to reach a solution together.

Confidence Boost: Successfully solving a riddle can boost a student's confidence and self-esteem, reinforcing the idea that they can overcome challenging problems with the right approach and effort.

Enjoyment of Learning: Riddles can make learning fun and engaging. When students enjoy solving riddles, they are more likely to be motivated to tackle other challenging problems and develop a positive attitude toward learning.

Real-World Application: Many problem-solving skills developed through riddles have practical applications in everyday life, from troubleshooting technical issues to making informed decisions.

Adaptability: Riddles come in various forms and difficulty levels. Students must adapt their problem-solving strategies to match the specific riddle they are working on. This adaptability is a valuable skill in navigating diverse challenges.

Incorporating riddles into educational activities or as part of a curriculum can be an effective way to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills in students. It's important to choose riddles that are age-appropriate and gradually increase in complexity to match the students' cognitive development. By doing so, educators can harness the power of riddles to promote holistic intellectual growth.

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60 Riddles to challenge your students - Innovative Teaching Ideas

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Kids love riddles. They often see them as a very intellectual challenge that can be solved by thinking outside of the square. Below are 60 riddles that your

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In the middle of class, a kindergartner spotted an ant and asked the teacher, "Why do ants come into the classroom?" Fairly quickly, educational consultant Cecilia Cabrera Martirena writes, students started sharing their theories: Maybe the ants were cold, or looking for food, or lonely.

Their teacher started a KWL chart to organize what students already knew, what they wanted to know, and, later, what they had learned. "As many of the learners didn't read or write yet, the KWL was created with drawings and one or two words," Cabrera Martirena writes. "Then, as a group, they decided how they could gather information to answer that first question, and some possible research routes were designed."

"An interesting question and the discussion that follows can open up paths of critical thinking for students at any age," Orr says. "With a few thoughtful prompts and a lot of noticing and modeling, we as educators can help young students engage in these types of academic conversations in ways that deepen their learning and develop their critical thinking skills."

While this may not be an "easy process," Orr writes-for the kids or the teacher-the payoff is students who from a young age are able to communicate new ideas and questions; listen and truly hear the thoughts of others; respectfully agree, disagree, or build off of their peers' opinions; and revise their thinking.

4 Strategies for Kick-Starting Powerful Conversations

1. Encourage Friendly Debate: For many elementary-aged children, it doesn't take much provoking for them to share their opinions, especially if they disagree with each other. Working with open-ended prompts that "engage their interest and pique their curiosity" is one key to sparking organic engagement, Orr writes. Look for prompts that allow them to take a stance, arguing for or against something they feel strongly about.

For example, Orr says, you could try telling first graders that a square is a rectangle to start a debate. Early childhood educator Sarah Griffin proposes some great math talk questions that can yield similar results:

How many crayons can fit in a box?

Which takes more snow to build: one igloo or 20 snowballs?

Estimate how many tissues are in a box.

How many books can you fit in your backpack?

Which would take less time: cleaning your room or reading a book?

Which would you rather use to measure a Christmas tree: a roll of ribbon or a candy cane? Why?

Using pictures can inspire interesting math discussions as well, writes K-6 math coach Kristen Acosta. Explore counting, addition, and subtraction by introducing kids to pictures "that have missing pieces or spaces" or "pictures where the objects are scattered." For example, try showing students a photo of a carton of eggs with a few eggs missing. Ask questions like, "what do you notice?" and "what do you wonder?" and see how opinions differ.

2. Put Your Students in the Question: Centering students' viewpoints in a question or discussion prompt can foster deeper thinking, Orr writes. During a unit in which kids learned about ladybugs, she asked her third graders, "What are four living and four nonliving things you would need and want if you were designing your own ecosystem?" This not only required students to analyze the components of an ecosystem but also made the lesson personal by inviting them to dream one up from scratch.

Which is better, giant muscles or incredible speed? Why?

What's the most beautiful person, place, or thing you've ever seen? Share what makes that person, place, or thing so special.

What TV or movie characters do you wish were real? Why?

Describe a routine that you often or always do (in the morning, when you get home, Friday nights, before a game, etc.).

What are examples of things you want versus things you need?

3. Open Several Doors: While some students take to classroom discussions like a duck to water, others may prefer to stay on dry land. Offering low-stakes opportunities for students to dip a toe into the conversation can be a great way to ensure that everyone in the room can be heard. Try introducing hand signals that indicate agreement, disagreement, and more. Since everyone can indicate their opinion silently, this supports students who are reluctant to speak, and can help get the conversation started.

Similarly, elementary school teacher Raquel Linares uses participation cards -a set of different colored index cards, each labeled with a phrase like "I agree," "I disagree," or "I don't know how to respond." "We use them to assess students' understanding, but we also use them to give students a voice," Linares says. "We obviously cannot have 24 scholars speaking at the same time, but we want everyone to feel their ideas matter. Even if I am very shy and I don't feel comfortable, my voice is still heard." Once the students have held up the appropriate card, the discussion gets going.

4. Provide Discussion Sentence Starters: Young students often want to add their contribution without connecting it to what their peers have said, writes district-level literacy leader Gwen Blumberg. Keeping an ear out for what students are saying to each other is an important starting point when trying to "lift the level of talk" in your classroom. Are kids "putting thoughts into words and able to keep a conversation going?" she asks.

Introducing sentence starters like "I agree..." or "I feel differently..." can help demonstrate for students how they can connect what their classmate is saying to what they would like to say, which grows the conversation, Blumberg says. Phrases like "I'd like to add..." help students "build a bridge from someone else's idea to their own."

Additionally, "noticing and naming the positive things students are doing, both in their conversation skills and in the thinking they are demonstrating," Orr writes, can shine a light for the class on what success looks like. Celebrating when students use these sentence stems correctly, for example, helps reinforce these behaviors.

"Students' ability to clearly communicate with others in conversation is a critical literacy skill," Blumberg writes, and teachers in grades K-2 can get students started on the path to developing this skill by harnessing their natural curiosity and modeling conversation moves.

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4 Strategies for Sparking Critical Thinking in Young Students

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Fostering investigative conversation in grades K-2 isn't easy, but it can be a great vehicle to promote critical thinking.

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Improve engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking by teaching students the process of asking insightful questions.

Jacob Lund / Shutterstock

In a recent piece for MiddleWeb, teacher and author Jackie Walsh disputes the commonly accepted classroom expectation that teachers ask the questions and students answer. "Student-generated questions put learners in the driver's seat," she writes. "They advance both learning and engagement."

There are natural barriers to shifting to this more student-centered approach: "many think that asking questions might lead teachers to believe they're not smart or suggest to their peers that they're not cool." But Walsh offers step-by-step guidance for addressing those issues and fostering an environment that supports questioning by students.

The first step is to explain why questions are critical to the learning process, Walsh says. Provide students with clear rationales such as, "I use questions to understand other perspectives and to engage in collaborative thinking and learning" or "I ask myself questions to monitor my thinking and learning." Identifying the function of a question is crucial in motivating students, and these sample stems serve as prompts for students who need help to form useful questions.

For reference, Walsh has developed a comprehensive, metacognitive framework of questioning skills and matching prompts. The rubric makes the relationship between critical thinking and asking questions explicit and is a great handout for students.

Ultimately, though, the art of framing a question is one that must be practiced, Walsh writes. She suggests a "think time 1-2" practice, which emphasizes longer-than-normal pauses to ask and then process questions: Use a three-to-five-second pause after the teacher's question to allow students to determine what the question is asking and whether the students understand it, and then provide a second "think time" after a student responds. The second pause "provides the opportunity for students to process what a speaker has said and pose questions about the speaker's comment or about the topic in general."

Other simple changes can drive home the point. Asking students, "What kinds of questions do you have?" instead of the more typical "Do you have any questions?" can send the clear signal that the torch has been passed to them. She also recommends that teachers "institute a policy of 'raise your hand to ask a question-not to answer the teacher's question.'" Flipping the expectation from a class where the teacher poses questions to one where students ask the questions leads to greater engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking.

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Teaching Students How to Ask Productive Questions

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Improve engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking by teaching students the process of asking insightful questions.

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You got me runnin', goin' out of my mind

Life has been busy, as you may have noted from the fact my last post was from the middle of February. As I pondered how to bring some fun into my classroom for my students in my last hour Spanish class (I teach English II, Mythology, Yearbook, and Multimedia Communications the rest of the day), I thought about making a game. Then I recalled how much fun my students in other classes have had creating their own games to help them learn the content, and that settled it for me. I would have my students create the game or games. I also feel like I should add that my students and I have been at school, in person, this entire school year. We have rolled with the changing guidelines. Please don't be upset when we aren't pictured as 6 feet apart. Students are masked when closer than 6 feet, our community has had very few cases, and we haven't had to quarantine since the mask mandate. This has worked for us. Do what you need to for your students, district, and community. I'm sharing in case this will help some have fun while learning and also to disrupt a stressful year with a bit of goodness.

You got me thinkin' that I'm wastin' my time

My district is small and serves pre-kindergarten through 12th grade all on one campus, so some of my classes are small, meaning 10 or fewer students. With only seven in my last hour class, they liked the game idea but did not want to create them individually or in teams. They wanted to do it as a whole class. My first instinct was to shut that down, but I paused. A whole group approach meant that we would only have one game to play, but it also meant that everyone would be invested in it, so why not try it. I approved.

Students set up the game to incorporate the entire classroom.

Don't bring me down

Another thing to consider, besides a whole class approach, when having students create games for your content is the length of time needed to do so. While I like to let go of some control when students are creating, I do also really appreciate creative constraints. An area that you can consider using with game creation is time. Limit the time they have to create the game. Students will use however much time you give them, so to value your instructional time, limit the time they get for the game. You might be surprised at how fast students can put together a fun game. Now, a caveat to using the time constraint or other creative constraints is the need for iteration. Students will need to make adjustments and changes as the game is played. So while you tell them it must be completed by the end of the hour, by the next class period, or in two hours (depending on your schedule and grade level), keep in mind that you will need to play it once to get the kinks or bugs fixed, and then at least once after it is "perfected."

No, no, no, no, no

Ooh-ooh-hoo

When possible, have students create a game where the content can be swapped out for new content throughout the year. The game structure needs to be flexible instead of fixed. For example, if students create a game where they draw cards for the content questions or a different game element, then that can be a little more complicated than if they create the game to rely on the teacher for the questions/content. That can be another creative constraint too. In case this has confused you, I'll explain the game, with pictures, that my students came up with and how we decided to run it. The game was improved as we played it the first few times.

There were at least two Go To Jail squares.

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

The candy land, snakes & ladders, and monopoly game:

My students decided they wanted to use the entire room as the board for the game. That also gave me pause, but intrigued with the idea, I let them create the game using whatever they needed, which included the room. Using construction paper, students charted out a Candy Land-esk layout. As they were plotting the path for the game, I asked them questions to help them think through the game elements. They decided they would be their own game pieces, which is great because that means we always have enough when we play the game. I had them think through positive and negative consequence squares to land on, how to determine the number of spaces they get to move, and what we would use as a game piece for how many paces they move, etc. Here is what we came up with:

Here's the game in action!

Don't bring me down

Supplies:

Colorful construction paper

Beach ball

Quizizz (content / questions)

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Instructions:

Students (masked if teaching in person during a pandemic) gather at the START square

Using the flashcard mode of our current vocabulary Quizizz, student has to answer or provide the correct answer.

Beach ball is thrown to student after successfully answering the question, whatever color their left hand lands on determines how many spaces to move. Have your class look over the colors of your beach ball and determine the number of spaces. Ours ranged from 1-7, assigning positive movement forward for each color. Backward movement was built into a few of the squares that students might land on. Also, ours was an actual exercise ball that had a beach ball cover on it. That actually added to the fun.

Student moves to appropriate square and next student repeats that process.

If the square is on furniture (tables, desks, etc.), then student will sit not stand on the square. 🙂

My students added the following types of squares: Go to Jail (to get out of jail, the student just had to answer the question correctly when it was their turn next, and then the student just returned to the Go To Jail square to resume the game), Go Back ___ Spaces, Skip ahead 3 spaces, etc.

Students created a bonus card that they placed under an existing square. It was a cream/brown colored piece of construction paper, and it was labeled Skip Question. If a student landed on the square that had that card under it, then they could take that card with them through the game and use it one time. If they were given a question /word that they didn't know, they could give that card to the teacher (me) and then get a different (the next) question/word.

Don't bring me down

If you want to try something like this, I highly encourage it. Students were even motivated to pay more attention to the vocabulary work we do on Quizizz daily, so that they would do better when we next played the game.

Their idea here was to be able to ask a classmate for help when landing on this spot, if help is needed.

Why not? If pandemic teaching, this is an "Air High Five.":)

Because bridge.

Here's an example of one of the negative landing squares.

Everyone needs a bit of luck!

I display the card on the Smartboard, so think of ways you can display your content questions.

That's it! Now that you've seen what my students created, think about ways you can get your students creating with your content. A game is always a fun activity for everyone, and don't we need a bit of fun right now? I know I do. My students do. If you are adventurous and let your students create something fun with your content, don't forget to share out and tag me on Twitter! 👇👇👇

Guess what my students and I created! Check this out!
Tweet

heading titles are partial lyrics from don't bring me down by the electric light orchestra.

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Life has been busy, as you may have noted from the fact my last post was from the middle of February. As I pondered how to bring some fun into my classroom for my students in my last hour Spanish c...

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8 Powerful Ways to Promote Equity in the Classroom

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All Posts Every student in my classroom deserves an equal chance. Agree or disagree? Responding to the level of diversity in your classroom is more important than ever. But all too often, our education system reinforces the same inequalities it was designed to overcome.

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What makes your students curious? When do you see their faces light up with interest at school?

At home, my teen stepson is all about cars, all the time. My daughter is currently obsessed with astrology, while my husband can talk for hours about Roman history (really!). It's worth noting that my kids' passions aren't related to school at all.

As educators, we have the opportunity to create more spaces and places for joyful exploration. Our classrooms can become curiosity centers where students share what fascinates and energizes them.

But each student will be curious in their own way. According to fascinating new research, there are several different types of curiosity-which affect what students are interested in and what that interest looks like. If we welcome and celebrate all types of curiosity at school, we can not only help our students learn but also contribute to their well-being in life.

The five dimensions of curiosity

Researcher Todd Kashdan claims that curiosity simply can't be defined as a single trait; it actually has multiple dimensions. After synthesizing years of research in the field, Kashdan and his team conducted three studies of nearly 4,000 adults in total to test a new model of curiosity.

They found evidence for five specific dimensions of curiosity:

1. "Joyous Exploration" Curiosity: You are filled with wonder and fascinated by the world-like when you travel to a new place, discover a new artist you love, or pursue a new hobby like geocaching.

2. "Need to Know" Curiosity: You feel uncomfortable because there is a gap in your knowledge, and you have to fill that gap-like when you're prepping for the science fair, and the robot you built just went belly-up, literally. What do you need to know in order to fix it? (This dimension is technically called "Deprivation Sensitivity.")

3. "Social" Curiosity: You want to know more about another person, so you watch them and talk to them-like when you try to find out what makes your new friend laugh.

4. "Accepting the Anxiety" Curiosity: You tolerate any uncomfortable feelings that may come with a new experience, and they don't hold you back-like when you join a new hip hop club even though you don't know any of the other members. (This dimension is technically called "Stress Tolerance.")

5. "Thrill Seeking" Curiosity: You take risks because you enjoy new and exciting experiences-like when you run for president and give a speech at school or go snowboarding for the first time. You don't just tolerate the anxiety; it actually feeds you.

Although these dimensions have only been studied with adults so far, it's worth knowing that people who took Kashdan's curiosity survey fell into four specific curiosity types:

1. The Fascinated (28 percent): high scores on all the dimensions of curiosity, especially "Joyous Exploration."

2. Problem Solvers (28 percent): medium scores on all dimensions, but a high score on "Need to Know" curiosity.

3. Empathizers (25 percent): medium scores on all dimensions, but a high score on "Social" curiosity.

4. Avoiders (19 percent): low scores on all curiosity dimensions, especially "Accepting the Anxiety."

We don't yet know the benefits of each particular type of curiosity; however, research suggests that curiosity in general can be quite rewarding for young people.

Why is curiosity so important?

Apart from intelligence and effort, researchers claim that curiosity-" a hungry mind "-is actually one of the three key predictors of academic achievement. We spend a lot of time pondering our students' ability levels and whether they have the capacity to persevere in school, yet curiosity, the least-studied ingredient in the mix, may be the most vital.

For example, researchers at the University of Michigan recently discovered a link between curiosity and academic success in early childhood. In their 2018 study of 6,200 children, Prachi E. Shah and her team found that curious kindergarteners had higher scores in both reading and mathematics.

Other research with teens in Hong Kong indicates that, when school is more challenging, curious students perform better than their less curious peers on academic achievement tests. According to a 2014 study, our brain chemistry actually changes when we become curious, which helps us to learn and remember information.

And in terms of students' well-being, a study of over 400 Serbian teens found that students with high levels of curiosity reported greater life satisfaction, positive emotions, hope, and purpose in life. In a 2018 study, more curious teenagers also tended to be more self-compassionate. If you are open to exploring and appreciating new experiences, you may be more kind and accepting of yourself-and the unpredictable nature of life.

Broader research with adults also suggests that curious people tend to be more tolerant of anxiety, humorous and playful, emotionally expressive, and non-defensive and non-critical. Curiosity appears to be a force within us that not only enhances learning, but opens us up to more positive perspectives and experiences.

Five tips for cultivating curiosity

Whether our classroom is filled with "The Fascinated" or we have a lot of kids who seem to be "Avoiders," what would it look like if we all focused a little less on student performance and a little more on curiosity?

1. Model and encourage academic risk-taking. If "avoiders" are struggling with accepting the anxiety that comes with new experiences, we can help them by modeling risk-taking, all the time, in our classrooms. Solve a math problem on the board with your students (and mess up). Or write a poem, live, in front of them while sharing all the stops and starts and moments of struggle that occur as you think aloud.

Students need to see us falter, and they need to feel like it's okay to be unsure of themselves when they try something new. Otherwise, we will continue to have "avoiders" in our classrooms.

2. Normalize fear and anxiety. For people who score highly on "thrill-seeking" curiosity, risk-taking actually makes them feel more excited and alive. They thrive on the anxiety. What can we learn from them?

At the very least, there are ways to accept the fear we sometimes feel rather than fight or ignore it altogether.

Mindfulness and self-compassion practices provide us with practical tools for tolerating stress and navigating the frustration, fear, or anxiety associated with trying new things. You can adapt simple practices for your classroom like Mindful Breathing, the Self-Compassion Break, and the Body Scan Meditation and share them regularly with your students.

3. Provide challenging group project options. Based on the research mentioned above, we know that curious students do not necessarily get higher grades and test scores unless they believe that school is challenging (and perhaps worth their time?).

So, this tip packs a punch. According to a 2016 report, not only should students' learning tasks be challenging (and well-scaffolded), but they should also center around group inquiry (e.g., experiments, expeditions, and other research) driven by higher-order questions (the why's and how's) and supported by cooperative group structures where students can work interdependently.

For example, you might create a geometry scavenger hunt where second graders work in cooperative pairs (with designated roles) to find a range of shapes in their school or playground (like triangles, squares, and rectangles); then they can explain why the shapes they select meet the appropriate criteria. Or you could design a project around an environmental issue of your students' choice. Assign students to cooperative groups where they work together to research the issue, debate the pros and cons, collect school polling data, and finally vote on the issue.

4. Link the boring stuff with things kids want to know. Of course, learning isn't always fun and exciting; there are some things we just have to know and do, whether we like it or not.

For those skills, try to find ways to make learning more enticing. If you need to teach students to write topic sentences or research papers, have them choose something of interest to explore (an animal they love or a musician they're obsessed with, how cars work or how to run a political campaign). Or, if you need to teach basic measurement skills to elementary students, get them outside measuring their three favorite playground objects (or their pets at home). If you want to teach argumentation skills to secondary students, have your students examine the pros and cons of active social media use.

Wrap the interesting stuff around the seemingly boring stuff; it will be much more memorable.

5. Let curiosity drive goal-setting and growth. Research suggests that curious people may also be more hopeful and purposeful. So why not think more about how curiosity can inform your students' short- and long-term goals? What units and subjects most excite them at school? What do they dream about exploring, but haven't yet? What careers are most appealing and interesting to them?

In a 2015 study, researchers discovered that curiosity actually makes progress feel more satisfying. In other words, when you meet a goal that is driven by your authentic desire to learn, you may get a more lasting boost in well-being. In this case, your academic goals become less about performance and achievement and more about personal growth.

Finally, what if we, as educational leaders, took this message to heart ourselves? If we focused a little less on numbers and a lot more on our own professional learning together, wouldn't school be more fun for us, too? How might a widespread focus on curiosity shift our school climate?

With all of the standardized tests and academic hoop-jumping we do these days, we need to hold on to the fun and joy of learning-all of us. We can take advantage of our human capacity for curiosity and all the energy, interest, and enjoyment it brings.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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How to Cultivate Curiosity in Your Classroom

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Curiosity comes in different forms, and we can encourage it in the classroom to help our students thrive.

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Why teachers teach but kids don’t learn | Ben Richards | TEDxYouth@Haileybury

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Classroom engagement is key to a successful learning environment.

"Student engagement is the product of motivation and active learning. It is a product rather than a sum because it will not occur if either element is missing."
― Elizabeth F. Barkley, Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty

It's important for students to be active participants in the classroom, though we know how difficult it can be. One way to create energetic engagement, while also keeping students on task and helping them prepare for lessons or tests, is to use review games.

We've put together 14 different types of review games to keep your students engaged and learning!

Word Cloud Game

Word cloud games are an amazing way to have general review sessions with your students without putting any pressure on them to speak in front of the entire class. Word clouds also work great for teachers to get a general feel for areas where students might be struggling to understand.

Using our Word Cloud Game slide deck, you can create several prompts overviewing different areas the students need to study. For example, ask what the most difficult thing to understand was in a specific section. Or what they'd like to have explained again/in more depth.

Our word clouds allow students to make a response and also vote for one or multiple responses by the rest of the class. This will give you, and the students, a visual representation of what they'd like to learn more about or get more clarity on.

Deal or No Deal

While you might need to plan a bit ahead for this particular game, the engagement you'll get from your kiddos will be well worth it!

Pick 20 or 30 game 'events', or bonuses and penalties, which relate to your content. For example, adding points, subtracting points, bonus turn, lose a turn, etc. Write each event on the back of a post-it note and display them, numbered, on the board.

Divide the class in half and ask questions back and forth between each team. If the team answers the questions correctly in the allotted amount of time, they get to decide to get 1 point or to make a deal.

Students will take turns picking a card and reading it aloud. The team then decides together if the event is a 'deal' or 'no deal'. If it's a deal, the student keeps the card and gets the reward or penalty. If it's no deal, the student gets 1 point, like usual. The goal is to have the most points at the end of the game!

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are such a fun way to get students up and moving around the classroom, while also learning! We especially love scavenger hunts for math reviews.

To create your own scavenger hunt, make numbered posters with 2 pieces of information on it: At the top, include the answer to a math question on another poster. At the bottom, place a new question, without the answer.

Create an answer sheet for yourself that includes all the station questions and answers.

Once you've created your posters, place them around the room. Divide your class into groups and place some at each station. Give the groups a set amount of time to complete each problem. After that time is over, give about 30 seconds for them to find the station with the answer for their previous question.

Students should continue until they're back at their original question!

These scavenger hunts can be as simple and short or complex and long as you want. And while math is a favorite topic for us, you can use the format for a wide range of subjects!

Word Ladder

Word Ladders are the perfect activity to go over vocabulary lists for older children or work on phonics for younger children. And, this review activity is super easy to plan and takes very little preparation.

To create the best word ladder review game, start with a word at the bottom of the ladder. Write that word in huge letters on a piece of chart paper or poster board. Then, write a new vocabulary word above it, changing only 1 letter of the first word. So, if your first word was 'cat', your second word could be 'cot'.

The goal is to make it all the way to the top of the ladder!

For a more complex word ladder, set a word at the top and bottom, with the goal being to find just the right combination to get from one word to the next.

You can create ladders for any content area, and they're perfect for a quick review at the end of a unit or before a test.

Word Jumble

If you want to review vocabulary, word jumbles are a great way to add a little fun to the process. While you are more than welcome to create your own word jumble, we highly recommend using a word scrambler.

Want to make your word jumbles even more accessible and create more interaction with your students? Use our Class Quiz slide deck and add in the jumbled words or phrases and have your student's type in their answers on their phones.

While you can decide how many answers are shown in class (we don't recommend showing more than 5!), with our Pro Plan, you can save the data and see which students got the answers correct.

Jeopardy

Jeopardy is another one of those review games that may take a while, but is definitely worth the effort. Like the classic game show, pick 6 categories on things you're studying in the current lesson. For each category, create 5 questions going from easy to hard and worth different amounts of points - Starting at 100 and going to 500.

Play with the whole class or in teams. Students will choose a category and point value, then you'll read the question. The first person to buzz in gets to answer. If they're correct, they get the points! If they're wrong, they lose those same amount of points.

Bingo

Bingo is a review game with such versatility, we won't be surprised if it becomes one of your favorites. Bingo can be used for math, vocabulary, or (for younger students) learning sight words.

To create your bingo review game, start by creating a list of 25 math solutions, terms, or words you want to review, along with their answers or definitions. Write each term in a different box on a bingo card of 9 or 16 blocks (3x3 or 4x4). Or make the whole process easier and use a bingo card generator!

Then, using your answer sheet, give the math problem, vocabulary word definition, or show a picture of the sight word. Whichever student fills a row first, wins!

Headbands

The classic game headbands isn't just for games' night anymore! It's also a fun, giggle-inducing way to review for a class!

To start, write a review term on a post-it note and have students wear them as headbands. Each student must stick the note to their forehead without looking at it. Their goal is to figure out what the term on their forehead is.

For example, if one person has the word "Nectar" written on his sticky note, teammates would give them hints, such as a sugar-rich liquid that attracts pollinating animals, or something that a hummingbird drinks, until they guess the answer. If they can't guess in 20-30 seconds, they are out! The game is over when only one team has players left or when all terms have been guessed.

Trivia Competition

We love a good trivia game here at Slides With Friends, so you shouldn't be surprised to see a trivia game on our list of review games.

Our favorite slide deck for a trivia review is our Trivia Competition game.

What makes our trivia slide deck so amazing is it can be used for almost any subject. You have complete control over how it's customized - How long it is, what slides are included, and what questions are asked.

$10,000 Pyramid

If you're comfortable with a little chaos in your classroom, this is probably the review game for you.

To start, create a pyramid with space for 1 word on top, 2 in the middle, and 3 on the bottom. Add words, concepts, or phrases to these 6 blank spots, making a version for each round. Then, pair off your students and have them sit back to back. Have the first student start describing the first word at the base of the pyramid, giving hints to their partner until every word is guessed in bottom to top order.

The first team to get all 6 words or phrases wins! Then have the teams switch partners, with the student that had been giving clues now being the one to receive them.

Word Association Game

Another great way to have students learn their vocabulary words, while also getting their hearts pumping, is to play a word association game.

Give your students a list of vocabulary words and have them stand up. When you say a word, the first student to shout out a word associated with it gets a point. If they can't think of one, they sit down. The game is over when only one person is left standing or when all the words have been used.
You could also play this game with a twist - instead of the first person to shout out an associated word getting a point, the last person to do so loses a point.
What's Your Opinion?

For this game, you'll need some review questions that can be answered with opinions, such as "Who is your favorite president?" or "What is your favorite color?"

To start, have students form a circle. Then, choose one student to start by asking them the first question. The student that they ask can answer the question or pass it off to someone else by saying "I don't know." If they answer the question, the person to their left goes next. But if they say "I don't know," the person to their right gets to choose whether to answer the question or pass it off.

If someone answers three questions in a row, they get a point! The first person to reach five points wins.

You can also play this game with teams of two or more, with each team taking turns asking and answering questions.

Taboo

This is a classic game that can be played with almost any subject.

To start, choose a list of review terms or concepts. For each term, come up with a list of words that cannot be used to describe it. For example, if the term is "apple," the taboo words might be "fruit," "red," "round," or "food."

Then, put students into pairs and have them sit across from each other. One student will be the clue-giver and the other will try to guess the term. The clue-giver can say anything they want to describe the term, except for the taboo words.

If the guesser hears a taboo word, they can call it out and the clue-giver loses their turn. The first team to guess the term gets a point, and the first team to reach five points wins!
You could also play this game with teams of two or more, with each team taking turns being the clue-givers.
Family Feud

Another review game students can play in teams, or 'families', is family fued! Like the popular TV show, this game pits two teams against each other in a race to answer questions.

Divide the class into two teams. One member of each team must battle against one another to answer a review question. If they get it correct, their team earns a point. Have the remainder of the crew write the answers to the questions in their notebooks while they are playing with others. The game is over when all questions have been asked. The team with the most points at the end wins!

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14 Great Review Games to Engage Your Classroom | Roundup

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Take your classroom reviews to the next level, while also boosting classroom engagement, with these 14 review games.