Crunch Time: 5 Ways to AMP Up for the Final Stretch

Can you believe it? Depending on your geography, we are halfway through the third quarter or finishing up the third quarter. It is crunch time! Talk of the state exam is well underway, students are on the brink of not passing for the year or even worse – on the brink of not graduating. Some teachers are even starting to review their final exams and make sure that everything on the exam will be covered. How far do you have to catch up? What needs to be cut out of the curriculum that you thought you could include? Stress is in the air for us teachers, as well as, our students. The question needs to be asked – how can we provide some relief while also covering these important concepts? We put together 5 suggestions that you can use to make class more interesting and fun without compromising your content.

1. Escape the Room!

Support team building, collaboration, and problem solving in the classroom while also tasking students with reviewing main concepts in your class. No matter what the subject, any classroom can be turned into an “Escape the Room!” experience. The weather is getting nice enough (in most areas) where winners can literally escape the room for some time outside! Just break the class into stations and break the classroom into teams (you can even tweak questions from that old Jeopardy game you don’t use anymore). Some ideas for stations:

• Timed tests where the team must list the order of operations forward and then backward
• Factor out quadratic equations in simplest form BUT the next team member must FOIL it out and it must equal the original quadratic
• Three real-life shapes that have hidden parabolas in them – students must provide an estimate of “a” and indicate what kind of equation it represents
• There is a note written to the team with directions to the next clue, however it is written in passive voice! Students must revise the note in a certain amount of time to move on

2. Grudge Ball

Grudge ball is a great game for competitive students (who can also handle losing). Grudge ball is a team game where students are given an amount of “x’s” to start the game, but who’s goal is to get rid of all the other teams’ “x’s” while keeping as many of their own as possible. Presentation of the questions can be through a variety of modes ranging from Nearpod to Kahoot! Here are the rules of the game (of course modify it to your own classroom culture):

1.  Each group begins the game with 10 x’s.
2.  Ask questions that each team needs to discuss and write their answer on a whiteboard. Hold up your answer when you have it.
3.  The team that gets the answer correct gets to remove 2 x’s from another team. You can take them both from the same team or split them up.
4.  Before you take away x’s, you will get to increase the number by a ball into a net or trash can. If you make the shot from the far line, you can take 5 x’s off the board and if you shoot from the closer line you can remove 4 x’s.
5.  You can NOT remove x’s from your own team.
6.  If your group is eliminated, you may win your way back in the game by getting an answer correct and shooting a basket. You can earn 4 or 5 x’s back by answering a question correct and shooting a basket.
7.  The winning team is the one with the most x’s still left at the end of the game!!!!

3. Playposit

Playposit allows teachers and students to create interactive videos with questions to assess knowledge. Playposit provides their own library full of videos and pre-loaded questions customizable according to your needs. Users are also able to upload their own videos, even to the point of inserting a youtube URL. Assign groups of students to create a playposit that reviews a particular topic. Give parameters including a specific number of questions in the video, a minimum length of the video, and even ask them to provide you with their objectives. This not only supports collaboration and teamwork, but also embraces creativity while promoting mastery of content.

4. QR Codes

If time allows it, this is a great activity to get the students moving. Create a scavenger hunt with your own QR codes throughout the building (even outside if the weather is nice enough). Each QR code can link to particular text or URLs that will send students to the next clue. Make it interesting by offering a prize to the first person to complete the scavenger hunt.

5. Stinky Feet

First, on your white board or a poster board, post multi-colored sticky notes that that have negative or positive points from 1-10 on the opposite side. The board should just look like a bunch of blank sticky notes in a variety of colors. Then, assign two teams and using your typical review questions, when a team answers a question right, they can pick a sticky note. That note determines if they gain or lose points. Students enjoy getting up, the power of choice and the risk of the unknown! Plus, they are reviewing the material!

*Nearly every game above can be created for the classroom with varying degrees of techonology – you decide! The best part is that Planbook Plus allows teachers to take these games, plan them out in a planbook and catalog this lesson for use at a later time! Try it out and let us know which concept is your favorite!