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Ages: all

Content area: all

Use: to teach/reinforce skills in flexible, differentiated groups

Focus: differentiation, application, learning

Description: different areas in the room are set up with activities where students work on tasks simultaneously, with the activities being linked to one another

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Ages: all (primary grades will needs lots of practice and modeling)

Content area: all

Use: to reinforce, practice, or review skills

Focus: choice, reading

Description: typically a paper-based "menu" with activities in each of these categories: appetizer, main course, and dessert. Students choose one activity from each category to complete. This can be modified in several ways

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Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All Students

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How do I set up a station rotation model in my classroom?

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Interested in implementing stations and not sure where to start? This guide will give you tangible resources and research, with key insights and strategies around culture, space, and routines.

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visit Teachhub!

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Ages: all (primary grades will needs lots of practice and modeling)

Content area: ELA

Use: to teach/reinforce reading response skills

Focus: language skills, speaking/listening skills, turn-taking, leadership, collaboration

Description: small groups where students take turns facilitating their own reading response discussions. Teachers may help guide when needed.

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In depth links to how to start and implement literature circles.

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Before you begin, here are some general guidelines for setting up literature circles in your classroom. These guidelines apply across grade levels. When you're ready to see specific examples of structure from grade levels similar to yours, click on either "Primary" or "Intermediate/Middle School" classroom examples below.

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Literature Circles Structure: General Guidelines

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Before you begin, here are some general guidelines for setting up literature circles in your classroom. These guidelines apply across grade levels. When you're ready to see specific examples of structure from grade levels similar to yours, click on either "Primary" or "Intermediate/Middle School" classroom examples below.

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visit LitCircles!

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Ages: almost all (primary students will need to know how to read or help reading)

Content area: all

Use: student choice in practicing skills

Focus: differentiation, choice

Description: often a paper-based 'tic tac toe' board, typically 3 items across by 3 items down, which allow students choice in completing the activities, but they generally must complete three - diagonally, across, or down.

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This breaks down how to create one, but also tips for what sort of questions to include where, and why.

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Creating a Choice or Tic-Tac-Toe Board in Word

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Ages: all (primary grades will need to know how to read or be read to)

Content area: almost any

Use: to reinforce knowledge, informal assessment, review

Focus: problem-solving, teamwork

Description: this can be modified in many ways, but students can complete this independently, in pairs, or in groups in the classroom or virtually to find a set of items geared toward a theme or subject matter.

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Everybody loves a good scavenger hunt! The minute I told my students that we were doing a scavenger hunt to review their material, they were visibly excited. When you create a scavenger hunt for your classroom, your students will be over the moon excited. They will love that this is the form of review you are using instead of just reciting answers to questions you ask them.
So how do you create the perfect scavenger hunt for your classroom? Creating a classroom scavenger hunt that allows you to reiterate what they have been learning is a great way to help students to remember concepts that they may not have been catching onto. They will remember what they have learned much longer than if they were just taking notes and moving on. Read on to find out exactly how to implement some really good scavenger hunts into your own classroom (or even homeschool).
I am going to give you instructions for three different types of review scavenger hunts and three different types of fun scavenger hunts. And I will give you all the forms you need in printable format so you can just fill in the information that you want to review or just play with your class.

Some Helpful Tips Before You Begin

Before I get into the details of each of the classroom scavenger hunts, I wanted to talk about some tips that will help you to pull your scavenger hunt off without a hitch.

Don't limit yourself to the classroom.

The more creative you get, the more your students will love it. You can even combine the locations and give them multiple places to go.

Or you could split the whole class into two teams. You could split the two teams randomly (I wouldn't necessarily recommend this, though, since it would probably be better to let friends hang out), boys vs. girls, or let them "choose teams based on picking a couple of captains. Regardless of how you do it, feel free to let friends be together as they wish. This is supposed to be fun!

We definitely don't want to frustrate the students if they get a clue that they just can't crack. Making your scavenger hunt challenging is awesome and they will like it, but not if they can't figure it out. It is a great way to challenge them just a little bit beyond their knowledge as long as you are giving them good clues to fill in the rest of the info they need. This is a great way to stretch their level of knowledge without them feeling the pain.

Also, giving them help in the form of questions that they must answer will help them to feel like they figured it out on their own without you spoon feeding them any answers.

Once you have everything in place, go through it yourself to make sure everything is lined up correctly. You would be surprised how many times I have done this and realized I didn't set everything up exactly as it needed to be. Or something didn't exactly make sense so I could tweak it to work better. You will most likely have to do this after the first run or two anyway, just to improve it after seeing it in action.

This way you can keep it for the next time. You could even laminate to make it last forever. You will be so glad you did it when next year you want to do it again and it's ready to go for you.

Don't Let Them Collect the Items

Make sure they all understand that they are not to collect the items. They only need to find them and identify them with their partners or team. And you (along with any other assistant, teacher, or parent) will observe them finding everything. For those things that you don't catch, you can just ask them what they saw and where they saw it. This way, you aren't spending tons of time trying to put everything back and you don't have to worry about having 25 of each thing for the kids to pick up.

Types of Review Scavenger Hunts

The two best classroom scavenger hunts for review are the list one and the follow the clues one. They both allow you to put certain phrases or facts in front of the students that they will have to remember long enough to work out or find.

I will go into more detail for you.

This one is the easiest and most common classroom scavenger hunt, both for fun and for review of classroom material. The reason is because it is so much easier to implement. You don't have to worry about coordinating clues or making sure the students are going in the right order. They can just do it all and be done. You can also provide prizes, either for everyone who finishes or the top few. What I usually did was have a bigger prize for the first 3 or 5 that finished, then a smaller prize for everyone else. That way there was an element of satisfaction for everyone involved. And honestly, it was just a perfect way to finish something the students already had such a good time doing.

Here is a printable form for you (one has a "fun" list of things for your students to find, the other is blank for you to fill in as it works for you. Just click on them to download and print.

So the follow the clues classroom scavenger hunt is exactly what it sounds like. The students will need to figure out clues and then follow them to where they are led. Once they get to that place, they find out if their answer was correct. They either return to the previous clue to rework it if they were wrong, or they move on if they were right.

I will give you a form to fill out the cards. But it won't make sense for me to give you the ones I have already done because my review material is probably going to be quite different from everyone else's.

So for the photo classroom scavenger hunt, the only thing you need is the list of what you want your students to do and then take a picture of themselves (their teams) doing or finishing those items. Once they have all the pictures, they are all set! Just like the other classroom scavenger hunts, you can give out prizes after for the first team or first few teams. Or you can just give out a prize to all. Hint: kids love food prizes. Even if it's some homemade chocolate chip cookies. And if you don't bake, but one of your students' parents does, then you can still get that job done!

Here is a printable form for you to make your list of instructions for the pictures:

Types of Fun Scavenger Hunts

This was one of our classes' all time fun scavenger hunts to do. It does take some prep work on your part because you have to take the pictures and print them up. But once you have done that, you will never have to do it again! And you will have an instant game option for whenever you need it.

This is literally a perfect activity to do when you have lost your students' attention and you all need a pick-me-up.

So what you do is take pictures of random things around your classroom (or wherever you are planning to do the hunt). Make sure the pictures are zoomed in close enough that your students don't figure out where it's at by looking at what is surrounding it. The best picture is the one showing only a portion of the thing you want them to find.

Some suggestions to make it more challenging are:

a portion of a picture hanging on the wall

a distinct portion of a piece of furniture

one of the corners of a window that has a certain view they will be able to distinguish

Hopefully that will be enough get you started.

Since your material for this is the pictures that you take, I don't have a printable form for you.

This one is a series of clues that leads your students to a final treasure chest filled with their prizes.

If you have the ability to make this one a multi-location one, that would make it much better for the kids, especially as they get closer to finding the treasure. It won't be as much fun if everyone sees where the first person or team went to find it.

This is actually the one treasure hunt that I would recommend you do as a single or teams of two just so it doesn't turn into a mad dash to the treasure chest.

The prizes would be really simple small things. Or it could even be cookies, fruit snacks, or some other fun food that is packaged up for them to reach in and take.

Here are a couple of things I found on Amazon that my son saw over my shoulder and made me buy, lol. Just click on them for more information.

You could use any of the above forms for this one, depending on how exactly you want to do it.

I generally would use the little Clue cards with the treasure on them. I would just do about 5 or 6 clues, with the last one leading them straight to the treasure chest.

In this classroom scavenger hunt, there are no specific clues. The students are just looking around for little treasures.

The best example I can give for this is an Easter egg hunt. In fact, I use Easter eggs, regardless of the time of year. That is because they are so versatile to use in the context that we do our scavenger hunts.

You are going to have packs of Easter eggs (you can always find them online if it is not Easter season at the stores). As many colors of eggs that you have is how many teams you will have. So you will have a pink team, blue team, yellow team, orange team, green team, and whatever other colors.

Then you need to tell your student teams what colors they are looking for. This will help to keep numbers consistent throughout the class, rather than a couple of students taking all of them ancd many students getting none.

You also want to establish a sense of camaraderie with the students so the better ones can help the ones having a more difficult time. This is such an empathy building exercise, even though without any guidance it tends to have the opposite effect.

The treasures inside the eggs don't have to be extravagant at all. Just whatever items you can fit in the already small spaces.

Conclusion

So these are my ideas and printables for hosting your own classroom scavenger hunts. Even if you end up doing all of them throughout the course of the school year, your students will not get bored! In fact, they would probably love it if you did it once a week. I never let my students talk me into that one, though, haha.

So please let me know how this worked for you! And for those homeschoolers reading my blog (because of Coronavirus, that's just about the whole world right now), let me know how it's working for you as well! I have done these with my boys and they loved it.

If you liked this article, I think you will like the following ones as well:

Best Games to Play in Class

How to Organize a Saturday Teacher Spa Day

How to Choose Perfect Middle School Art Projects

Best Indoor Recess Ideas: Unique Classroom Ideas

New Year Party in the Middle School Classroom

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Creating a Scavenger Hunt for Your Classroom - Complete Literature

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Everybody loves a good scavenger hunt! The minute I told my students that we were doing a scavenger hunt to review their material, they were visibly excited. When you create a scavenger hunt for your classroom, your students will be over the moon excited.

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visit We Are Teachers!

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Ages: all

Content area: all

Use: to teach/reinforce skills, review

Focus: problem-solving, cooperation, turn-taking

Description: concepts that are taught, reinforced, or reviewed through physical or digital games, or game-like elements.

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Tips and techniques for deciding on which games to introduce to students and how to teach them how to play.

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Classroom Management Strategies To Take Control Of Noisy Students

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Teachers have a number of options for introducing students to a new game-based lesson, including the fishbowl, playing together, and beginning with a simplified version. Read more: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/rolling-out-a-game-rebecca-rufo-tepper This video is part of the Made With Play series, a co-production with Institute of Play.

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visit Edutopia!

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Ages: all (primary students may need a lot of extra help)

Content area: all

Use: to teach/reinforce skills, practical, real-world application

Focus: problem-solving, collaboration

Description: students are engaging in a relevant real-world project (either independently, in groups, or in pairs) that incorporates learning goals

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Tools for understanding the process of planning and building projects, from our Project-Based Learning Professional Development Guide.

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visit PBLworks!

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Ages: almost all (primary grades may have a difficult time, but the right groups could be successful with modeling and practice)

Content area: almost all (may be difficult with math)

Use: to teach/reinforce skills, to apply and discuss

Focus: collaboration, discussion, peer instruction

Description: the instructor records a video lesson (instead of doing the lesson in person) that the students watch at home. Then, when they come to school, it's about discussing and applying their knowledge, often in groups

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A video demonstrating a flipped classroom in action in Hilton High School, Hilton, NY. 2012-2013

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visit Michigan State University!

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Ages: all

Content area: all

Use: to teach/reinforce skills, review

Focus: collaboration, discussion, peer instruction

Description: this can be modified in many ways, but an older grade can be paired with a younger grade to peer teach about technology or subjects, or peers in the same class can teach each other in whole group, small group, or one-on-one

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Tech Buddies: Building Technology Skills Through Peer Teaching

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visit Edsys!

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Differentiating Instruction Using Learning Menus

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Elementary and middle school classrooms often require students to read history textbooks. Historical accounts in textbooks, however, can often be dry or difficult to grasp. Learning Menus offer students a variety of active methods to access the textbook, remember pertinent information, and learn to regulate their own learning. This strategy can be adapted for multiple grade levels.

Learning Menus are forms of differentiated learning that give students a choice in how they learn. Each choice on the Menu encourages students to engage in an activity that requires actively reading, re-reading, and then summarizing important textbook content. After a student has completed an activity on the Menu, the teacher immediately assesses his or her work before she or he can move on. Learning Menus come in various forms and can include tic-tac-toe boards, restaurant-like menus, matrices, and multiple-choice grids. For example, students can be given a Learning Menu structured like that of a dinner menu with the headings "Appetizer," "Entrée," and "Dessert" and be instructed to follow the order of the menu just as they would in a restaurant. Within each "course" students choose from a list of activities. The assignment sheet includes a Well-defined Description for how to complete a chosen activity, the Possible Points one can earn for it, and the textbook Section it covers. At least one task must be completed for each book section, although students are always free to choose their own tasks from the menu choices. After the completion of each "course," the teacher assesses the result in Points Earned before the student moves to the next one. In the dinner menu example, "Appetizer" activities focus on summarizing the overall content in each section of the textbook reading with activity choices like "Flash Cards," "Outline," and "Summary." "Entrée" activities center on a closer reading of details and give students an opportunity to be creative with options like make a website or travel brochure. For "Dessert" students must choose a short activity that provides an overall summary of the most important themes found in the entire textbook reading.

For an example of a Learning Menu in action, see the video Differentiating with Learning Menus on the Teaching Channel website. In this video, Mary Vagenas uses a "dinner menu" strategy with her 7th-grade social studies students at the Queens School of Inquiry in Flushing, NY. Below the video and in the right-hand column under "Supporting Materials" one can find a sample Learning Menu and a full transcript of the video in Word (DOC) format.

Why is this a best practice?

Learning Menus are a method of differentiating instruction that provides flexible ways to engage students, and that can be adapted to various classroom environments. Students become familiar with different types of study methods that they can use to self-regulate learning in the future. Tasks can include simpler activities for struggling students and more complex activities to challenge advanced students. Continual assessment and feedback can help ensure that each student makes progress towards the learning goals. Learning Menus also liven up textbook reading activities by giving students choices about how to extract essential information. These choices can help motivate reluctant readers. However, no matter what a student chooses from the menu, he or she engages in actively reading and making sense of textbook content, helping build historical knowledge.

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Elementary and middle school classrooms often require students to read history textbooks. Historical accounts in textbooks, however, can often be dry or difficult to grasp. Learning Menus offer students a variety of active methods to access the textbook, remember pertinent information, and learn to regulate their own learning.

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visit KNILT!

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Ages: all (primary grades will needs lots of practice and modeling)

Content area: all

Use: to reinforce, practice, or review skills

Focus: choice, reading, collaboration

Description: cards that have tasks or questions on them that students have to complete either with the guidance of a teacher in small group or independently/in pairs around the room

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Here is an additional way to save on making copies: Project a task card as students enter the classroom, and have students complete the warm up in an interactive notebook. Praise students who get started on the warm up before class even starts.

7. Four corners for Multiple choice task cards

When you get closer to state testing time, practicing multiple choice questions is an important testing strategy. State testing practice can feel monotonous, so getting students out of their seats to answer questions and defend their answers is a must. Project a task card, give students time to work it out independently or in pairs, and then assign a corner of the room either A, B, C, D. When you prompt them, students move to the corner of the room with the answer they got. For additional practice, you could also ask questions like, "Which answer choice can we eliminate before even working out the problem?" and have students move to the corresponding corners and discuss.

8. USING TASKS CARDS WHILE SOCIAL DISTANCING

Project a task card that students answer using individual whiteboards or scratch paper

Use one for an exit ticket or entrance ticket - either digitally by Google Forms or Go Formative

Boom Cards is an app that turns them into a digital game with instant feedback

9. Connect 4

Divide your classroom into two teams. Purchase a Connect 4 game or project this online version. As teams complete problems (with thorough strategies and units), you can hand a student a game piece or give them permission to play one piece online. This will encourage complete and accurate work because playing a turn only happens when everyone on each team has done the work properly. #positivepeerpressure

10. Spiraled review

If you have the time, printing task cards on card stock, laminating them, and organizing them will make reviewing at the end of the year a breeze. You will have sets from different units ready to be reused for state testing or for finals. No student will notice if you repeat cards from October in April, and you will not have to make up additional problems.

This is not an exhaustive list. In fact, I know that many of our readers use task cards in a variety of ways. How do you use them with your students?

Editor's Note: Maneuvering the Middle has been publishing blog posts for almost 6 years! This post was originally published in April of 2018; it has been revamped for accuracy and relevancy.

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10 Ways to Use Task Cards in Your Math Classroom

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Task cards are awesome! Here are 10 ways to incorporate task cards as meaningful work for your students in your classroom.

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Tips from guest blogger Rachel Lynette about how to use task cards effectively in your classroom.

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visit Appletastic Learning!