Short, Cheap Activities for 5th Graders
August 17, 2016 5:56 AM Subscribe
I'm looking to expand my repertoire of short, fun activities I can do with 5th graders.
The activity has to be contained within 20 minutes (including any set up and clean up), doable for a teacher's budget, fun, age-appropriate, indoor, and easy to manage with about 25 kids and two adults. I'm not looking for ice-breaker, getting-to-know-you activities -- I have a ton of those. Bonus points for educational activities that teach teamwork, communication and problem solving in short bursts.
Examples of what I already do and want more similar to:
-- mysterious artifacts that the students conjecture about (e.g. the Baigong Pipes)
-- 3-minute mysteries
-- cold pickles -- I bring in cukes, vinegar, salt and sugar and the kids all make cold pickles in ziploc bags.
-- newspaper towers -- groups get newspaper and masking tape, and they compete to see who can build the highest structure that can support a tennis ball for 10 seconds.
Thanks in advance for any and all of your suggestions!
The activity has to be contained within 20 minutes (including any set up and clean up), doable for a teacher's budget, fun, age-appropriate, indoor, and easy to manage with about 25 kids and two adults. I'm not looking for ice-breaker, getting-to-know-you activities -- I have a ton of those. Bonus points for educational activities that teach teamwork, communication and problem solving in short bursts.
Examples of what I already do and want more similar to:
-- mysterious artifacts that the students conjecture about (e.g. the Baigong Pipes)
-- 3-minute mysteries
-- cold pickles -- I bring in cukes, vinegar, salt and sugar and the kids all make cold pickles in ziploc bags.
-- newspaper towers -- groups get newspaper and masking tape, and they compete to see who can build the highest structure that can support a tennis ball for 10 seconds.
Thanks in advance for any and all of your suggestions!
Origami - some of the modular ones can be made up of one or two units from each kid.
posted by soelo at 7:13 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by soelo at 7:13 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Photocopy B&W images of various events, structures, places, innovations, and people from history. Ask groups of 3 to arrange them in what they think is the correct timeline and be ready to explain their choices.
posted by cocoagirl at 7:35 AM on August 17, 2016
posted by cocoagirl at 7:35 AM on August 17, 2016
Paper airplane contest! See how they work and have everyone try each of their creations to see which ones fly the farthest.
posted by xingcat at 7:47 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by xingcat at 7:47 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
You can differentiate scavenger hunts to meet the needs of all learners and they can be tons of fun!
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 10:48 AM on August 17, 2016
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 10:48 AM on August 17, 2016
Have a list of places that send out free literature, maybe a dinosaur museum sends out a brochure, maybe Yellowstone Park mails out a map? I don't know, but you could take an hour to send out postcards, each kid picks one and writes the card.
2, penny drive, then guess how many in a jar, then count the pennies as a class project, run through coin machine, donate to ASPCA.
posted by cda at 11:41 AM on August 17, 2016
2, penny drive, then guess how many in a jar, then count the pennies as a class project, run through coin machine, donate to ASPCA.
posted by cda at 11:41 AM on August 17, 2016
Build simple wire frames of shapes - cube, tetrahedron etc. dip one in soap solution and look at how bubble surfaces go. Then try to predict how other wire frames will look after being dipped in soap solution.
posted by sciencegeek at 1:42 PM on August 17, 2016
posted by sciencegeek at 1:42 PM on August 17, 2016
Science! There's a huge range of science you can do with stuff that's hanging around. If you use Pinterest search "science for kids". Alternatively, this is a resource designed for teachers like you - 100 experiments with readily available/cheap materials (disclaimer: I work for this small business, but I promise I just like it when people do science).
posted by cholly at 1:58 AM on August 18, 2016
posted by cholly at 1:58 AM on August 18, 2016
Word games: how many smaller words can you make from the letters in "UNIT VOCAB WORD"?
Geog place name chains: Start with a place name - the next person in the classroom has to name a place starting with the end letter of the previous location. Eg. Brazil --> Lexington --> New York. Can work as an elimination game with a timer of 5 seconds if your class is competitive.
Disclaimer: high school teacher, but these games have worked for age 12-18s.
posted by chronic sublime at 3:03 AM on August 18, 2016
Geog place name chains: Start with a place name - the next person in the classroom has to name a place starting with the end letter of the previous location. Eg. Brazil --> Lexington --> New York. Can work as an elimination game with a timer of 5 seconds if your class is competitive.
Disclaimer: high school teacher, but these games have worked for age 12-18s.
posted by chronic sublime at 3:03 AM on August 18, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
Programming "robots"- make a path on the floor and then assign one student to be the robot. If you have 25 students, you could do 5 groups of 5 students. The other students must "program" the robot student to move around obstacles and through the path. You can make this easy (the other students instruct the robot student to take ten paces forward, three paces right, etc.) or hard. The robot student should not follow impossible tasks, and also shouldn't help the programming team :) In the hard version, the students can't just say "walk ten paces straight ahead." Instead, they have to say "lift right leg and move forward" then "place foot 12 inches ahead of starting point on the floor."
posted by Mouse Army at 6:39 AM on August 17, 2016