Need some inspiration for your classroom activities or coaching practice? In this episode, Leah shares some of her favourite learning activities to engage learners. These classroom activities work for different grade levels and subject areas. They are fun to teach and are usually a hit with students!
Be sure to check out the links below for resources and templates you can use to try these activities in your own classroom!
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Booksnaps
Booksnaps put a twist on traditional reader response activities. Students snap a picture of what they’re reading and add a caption and emojis to document their thoughts, feelings or reaction to the text.
I like that it allows students to share their ideas and connections to a text in a more visual way, incorporating some digital design skills plus reading skills! This activity works well with all ages and can be done with a variety of texts, including picture books, novels, non-fiction texts, magazine articles, a page of a textbook, research articles, or just about anything else.
To learn more, read this blog post with examples and my rubric or watch this reel.
Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are a great way to have students apply their skills and knowledge by finding examples of the concepts they’ve been working with. A scavenger hunt works well for any grade level and subject area because you can customize your list of scavenger hunt items to whatever skills or knowledge your students are working on.
All you need to do is identify the concepts that you’d like your students to “find”/demonstrate and put the list of items into a template.
I like creating my digital scavenger hunts using Seesaw. I’ve saved some great templates from other teachers and also created my own. Check out this blog post for examples and templates for Seesaw scavenger hunts.
For older students, try a hunt using the GooseChase app we shared about here.
Hexagonal Thinking
I listened to Betsy Potash share about hexagonal thinking in this episode of the Brave New Teaching podcast this summer and was keen to try out this strategy with some of the teachers and students I work with.
The idea is that students receive (or create) a set of hexagons that have topics/vocabulary/ideas on them related to a unit/theme/text. The students rearrange the hexagons so that related concepts are touching. Students should be able to explain their connections for any hexagons that are beside each other. This can be done with digital hexagons or printed cards. It works whole group, small group or individually. Students can document the connections in a variety of ways such as: with text boxes and arrows, a screen recording or an oral explanation.
As a K-12 technology coach, I appreciate strategies that work with various grades and subjects/topics/themes. ✔️ This one has delivered!
Watch this video to see more about how I’m using hexagonal thinking.
Access my Canva template for making the hexagons.
Watch this video to see how I’m bulk creating the hexagons in Canva.