We all have those moments with some spare time in class and no plan of what to do. Maybe your class needs a reward, or maybe you just need a break at the end of a long week. Break out one of these bad boys and let the good times roll!

By the way, these ideas came from other teachers, and I simply record them here. Other teachers, please add to the list!

Math Related

50 - This is another one of those games that's great for teachers to play against the whole class.  First off, you explain to the class that the goal of the game is to be the one that lands on 50.  Now, the rules are that you can only pick a number between 1-6.  You cannot pick 0, and you cannot pick 7 or higher.  Go ahead and give the students the option of picking first or picking second.  Let's say the students decide to go first.  Well, after they have picked a number between 1-6, then it's the teacher's turn to pick a number between 1-6.  You then add the two numbers together and you now have a new total to play off of.  Then it's the student's turn again, and they will pick another number between 1-6, which will then be added onto the previous total to form a new total.  So let's say that the student originally chose 5, and then the teacher chose 4.  Well, now we have a total of 9.  Then the student came back and picked 6.  Well, then we now have a new total of 15.  The goal is to be the one that picks a number that gives your total 50.  For instance, let's say that our total was 45, and the students then picked 5.  Well, they would win, because the total is now 50.  This is a great number sense game that really seems to get the entire class competitive and enthusiastic about numbers.  Enjoy!!

The Factor Game - This game is great for playing teacher against the whole class, and it is relatively easy to scale down for a shorter length of play. Begin by writing a list of all the integers from 1 to ??? on the board. Select a higher number (like 50) for a longer game, a smaller number (like 30) for a shorter game. Take turns back and forth selecting numbers from the list. The side that selects a number adds that number to their point total, however the other side gets all of the remaining factors of that number. So, for instance, if side A picks 21, they would get 21 points, whereas side B would get 10 points (3 and 7). However, once a number is chosen (or taken as a factor), that number is crossed off the list and not used again. Keep playing until all numbers have been eliminated, then the side with the highest score wins.

Find a Place - This game requires a set of playing cards, preferably large ones, but any playing cards will do. Remove the face cards and jokers. Then begin by passing out photocopies of gamesheet. The gamesheet contains two columns of from one to three blanks, with a target number in the middle. [needs link to scan of gamesheet] The students divide into pairs, and each player completes their half of the gamesheet. Drawing cards, the teacher announces the number available to each player (where a 10 counts for the digit zero). The player whose turn it is must then place that digit somewhere on their gamesheet. Continue until all the blanks have been filled. Players may not move a number once it has been placed. The object is for each player to come as close to their target number as possible. For instance, the last line has a target of 1000. If player A got 8-7-3 on that line and player B got stuck with 3-7-8, this would be okay for player for player A, but very bad for player B.

The Last Block - This game is a great way to introduce linear functions. It requires a number of (preferably identical) blocks or other manipulatives you can pass out to students. Divide the students into pairs. You can vary the rules, but essentially you give the students approximately 14 blocks. The students take turns removing 1, 2, or 3 blocks. Tell them the loser of the game takes the last block. Or you can make the winner take the last block. You can even let them take up to 4 blocks. Try it a slightly different way each time. Give them enough time to try to figure out the winnning "stategy." Make it fun; students love to try and beat the teacher! Then you can make a table and graph the "magic" numbers (the numbers you want your opponent to choose from so that you can be sure to win the game).

Telepictionary - A group, silent, and mandatory participation game, very easily adaptable.  Each student needs one blank sheet of paper.  Normally in this *silent* game each person writes a sentence on the paper and then the group shifts papers clockwise/counterclockwise.  Each student then draws a picture for the sentence he receives and folds the paper down covering the sentence but not the picture.  Shift papers and write a sentence for the picture received.  Fold the paper down so that only the new sentence is showing and pass for another picture to be drawn (etc).  Continue until the paper is full or about 8 rotations have gone by, and then have the last person open up the sheet and read the silly transformations of the sentence.  I use this game with whatever math concept I can apply.  For instance, I had each student draw a triangle, labelling sides and angles.  The next person had to write a desciption of that triangle.  The next person would draw the triangle based on the description.  I also used it with scientific notation-- going between standard and scientific form of numbers-- and with the distributive property-- factoring and then distributing.  You can use it with any binary, form-switching concept.  Fractions to decimals?  Decimals to percents?  Play!  It's silent, and the kids love love love to find the mistakes that were made along the way.  If each person writes in his own color or initials every step, the students will point out for you (sometimes in a mean way, so be careful) who is having trouble with whatever you are doing.  Email me if this explanation is confusing. (Angela)

Assembly-Line Relay - This activity can work for any subject area for something that requires more than one step, and is best used for problems that have concrete steps, not problems where different students are likely to use different methods.  I've used this as a filler activity, and as part of my planned lesson activities.  Group the students based on the number of steps required for the problem, and each student has a task.  If time permits, multiple problems can be completed and the "jobs" can be rotated to ensure that all students have a chance to practice each of the skills.  Example:  Finding an equation based on two points.  We used three steps to accomplish this task:  1) find the slope using the formula, 2) find the y-intercept by plugging in the slope and one point, and 3) write the equation in slope-intercept formula using the information found in #1 & #2 and verify with one of the points.  The first person in the group will find the slope, then pass the paper to the person behind him, who will find the y-intercept, then pass to the person behind him, who will write the equation and check with one of the points.  If the check doesn't work, the third person will pass the paper back up the line to be corrected.  This is great for encouraging students to look for their own errors.  **Classroom management warning:  This is not a quiet activity.  I don't like quiet.  Since 2/3 of the class is not doing anything at any given time due to the nature of the activity, they are expected to cheer for their group member who is working.  I used this at my school last year and have used it this year at my new school, and in both cases the students did very well with it.  For informal evaluation purposes, it becomes very obvious which students don't know how to do the problems.  You can give an incentive for the first group to complete, and in my experiences anything from "glory of being the winner" to prize bucket choices to bonus points have been successful. (Elizabeth)

Public Speaking/Improv Games

Impromptus - I use little "impromptu" speaking exercises all the time in my Oral Communication class. The students usually enjoy these, particularly when I allow them to compose the topics, put them in a communal basket (make sure you edit their compositions- there will always be a few inappropriate suggestions), and then choose one on which to speak. I draw topics from current events, happenings at school ("What would you do to improve school lunch?"), or even things I hear the students chattering about in the hall. Students have two minutes to gather their thoughts, and then they must speak for a minute. The audience may ask questions after the initial minute has passed. This is an especially effective exercise to monitor and make students aware of their use of filler language (you know, like, etc.), posture, and eye contact. Make sure you have the audience rate each student's speech, otherwise the audience may get restless. (Kelsey)

Bus Stop - This is more of a dramatic improvisation exercise, but it works well to warm up a cold classroom full of sleepy kids. (Do not do this with a full energy class!) Pull a group of four up to the front of the room, and assign them a role to play. Good ones to start with- old lady, child, alien, etc. -anything that can be easily exaggerated. Students act out their roles, waiting for the bus, until you call time, when one person goes out and the next person comes in. The teacher, or the class if you so choose, can change the weather or the environment in which the people are waiting in order to elicit different reactions. You may have to prep your class on how this works; it helps to have a couple of theater kids or your class hams on your side for this one.  (Kelsey)

Emotions Gibberish - This is by far my favorite improvisation game. It is performed in pairs, with one or two students in the audience helping the game move forward. Basically the game has two main phases: regular speaking and speaking in gibberish. You provide the students (who are in pairs) with certain situations- disputing an order at McDonalds, on a plane during bad turbulence, teaching an alien how to ride a bike, etc. One pair gets up in front of the class and starts acting out one of the scenes speaking English and conforming to a certain emotion given at the outset of the skit. When the student in the audience raises his or her hand, the scene should switch to gibberish. (Students will usually need help with what gibberish is/sounds like- I've found that the analogy to the language of the Sims of the computer game works well.) You can also switch the emotion of the encounter if your wish, though be warned it can get confusing pretty quickly. (Kelsey)

Reading Activities

Good for any subject

Jeopardy/Who wants to be a millionairre - This is a great way to review for a test.  Create your own Jeopardy board.  You will need 5 categories (e.g. Digestive system, Circulatory system, Cell parts and functions, Excretory system, and Respiratory system).  Make up 5 questions for each category, and phrase them in the Jeopardy answer-as-a-question style.  Example: Excretory system for 500- these are the tiny filters inside each of your kidneys.  Write the question on the back of a piece of construction paper (large enough to be seen by students from their seats) and point value (100-500) on the front.  The day you play this in class, tape up the board ahead of time.  When it is time to play, have one student volunteer to be the score keeper and one volunteer to be the board master (in charge of taking down questions as they are asked and then taping them back up at the end).  Split the rest of the class into 2 teams.  Each person on a team gets a turn (go by seat order or something similarly simple) and has 30 seconds to answer the question from the time you finish reading it; only one answer is allowed.  This person may not speak to anyone on their team, or the question goes to the opposing team (depending on the skill level of your students, you may consider having a rule that allows them to communicate non-verbally with their team members, e.g. pointing to pages in a book).  Each team has 3 life lines: 50/50 (teacher gives them two answer choices, one of which is correct), ask a teammate, or poll the team (this requires the contestant to come up with 2 or more possible answers and have teammates vote on which one is correct).

Hangman- A great way to kill about 10 minutes if you are forced to hold a class, this game requires no preparation on your part.  Just a regular game of hangman, except students must use vocabulary words that they have learned in your class, and the person who guesses the word must also tell its meaning.  Depending on how long you are playing, you may want to divide the class into teams.  The person who gets the correct answer gets to go to the board next.

Twenty questions- Tell students that you are thinking of a concept that has to do with something you've been learning in class (give a specific category or not, depending on your students).  They have to ask yes/no questions to figure out the concept.

Riddles and Puzzles

Getting back to the spaceship- If you have to teach Newton's Laws of Motion, this is a great puzzle to get students to apply Newton's Third Law of Motion.  Imagine you are an astronaut in space and you have become separated from your spaceship with no rope to pull yourself back.  You are in a vacuum, so you can't push the air or kick to get back to your ship.  The only thing you have with you is a screwdriver in your hand.  How will you get back to your spaceship? (Answer: Throw the screwdriver away from the spaceship.  The equal but opposite reaction will push you back toward the spaceship.  Make sure students specify in which direction to throw the screwdriver).

Ice Breakers

Some of these are appropriate for the classroom, others would work better with a team or club

Human Knot

Blindfolded Animals

Floogle & Slorky