Creating an #interACTIVE learning environment is something that we strive to do as educators every day. But not every engaging activity has to be on a computer, involving song and dance or a costume change. Sometimes a simple die can go a long way!
The first week of school is always a time where we spend time developing the culture of our classroom and focusing in our our school-wide initiatives. We read books with global lessons like kindness and respectfulness while review the expectations our school has for all students. One of my favorite activities to do is a simple rule review “Cranium style”.
The inspiration for this activity comes from the board game Cranium where players must make their way through the board by getting their team to guess glues through drawing, acting or sculpting out of clay. Although we didn’t have a game board, I used a simple blank dice template to create a fun team-building review activity. Students worked in groups to guess clues to rules we had just reviewed regarding kindness.
Every group of students had a drawing utensil (pencil, white board marker, etc.), a small tub of Play-Doh, and the teacher-made die and a pile of cut out rule cards.
Each side of the die has an image representing the way the student will try to get their group to guess the rule—pencil means they draw, the bust means they sculpt and the clapperboard indicates they will in turn act out the clue. They roll the die, grab a clue card and then turn the timer for 30 seconds. (We used sand timers but you could monitor the time in many ways!)
This is always one of my favorite activities every year because it is a perfect way to match content with collaboration. Now in this lesson we used the dice to review school/class rules but the beauty of the Cranium-style actions is that they could be used with any content. Have lab procedures to review in science—do it in an #interACTIVE style! Maybe you want students to review the week list of vocabulary words—try it in this #interACTIVE way!
But maybe you don’t want to review something as route and routine as vocabulary words or class rules. We have also included a blank template for you to take and edit for your own #interACTIVEclass! Maybe you put literature group questions on each side, or math equations for students to solve. A simple edited die could create a fun vocabulary center as well. Roll to find the part of speech, a synonym/antonym or draw an illustration representing the word. The possibilities are endless!
If you have wound up in a position where you are solely teaching students virtually, no worries! Try using a live dice video to create the same experience for students. Direct students to the video or embed directly into your LMS, and have them pause and unpause as needed to “roll” their way through any planned activity. The example below is just one of many free resources available.
As the new school year rolls out, just remember that #interACTIVE lessons don’t always have to take a long time to plan or use lots of external resources. Simple and sweet is often the best way to get students engaging with content while collaborating and creating with each other.
-K 👗
For more interACTIVE ideas on making teaching and learning more relevant and engaging, check out our book The InterACTIVE Class!
