16. Pictionary: You know the drill. One student draws a picture and his/her team must guess what they are drawing. I have an index card prepared with the item that the student must draw. I have kids use the dry erase board so that the whole class can see what is being drawn.
17. Sculptorades: Anyone who has played Cranium knows this one too. Similar to Pictionary, but instead of drawing, the student who selected this challenge must sculpt a pre-selected item using Play-doh. I have an index card prepared with the item that the student must sculpt. Their team has 60 seconds to guess what they are sculpting.
18. Easter Egg Hunt: A perfect challenge for the springtime! Before class begins, I have already hidden 4 easter eggs in the classroom. Up, down, all around (except in my teacher-only zone), the classroom has many good hiding places...trust me. If you don't believe me, grab some sticky putty and then try. I let the whole team of the student who selected this challenge search for the eggs. Inside the eggs are a sheet of paper with a question on it. Students have a minute to find 3 eggs and answer 3 questions correctly. It's always fun to see the students' reactions when you show them where you've hidden the eggs they didn't find!
19. Stocking Stuffer: Another seasonal challenge, this winter activity can be quite amusing. I stuff a Christmas stocking with all sorts of stocking stuffers--little stuffed animals, toys, t-shirts, you name it. The student's task is a difficult one. They must be able to make some connection to what they've learned in class to any 3 items they pull out. For instance, if they pull out a stuffed cow, they could say, "The Mid-Atlantic colonies specialized in livestock." If they pull out a University of Virginia T-shirt that was sponsored by State Farm, they could say anything about Thomas Jefferson, cotton, or farming--as long as it related to something they learned in class. They could pull out a candy bar and talk about how the Columbian Exchange made candy bars a possibility. These are a couple of examples from my classroom...there are so many opportunities and sometimes the kids will come up with things that you've never thought of yourself!
20. Sentence Structure: For this team challenge, the students must correctly place individual words in order to form a grammatically correct sentence. For example, I might give them 13 sheets of paper with the following words:
Doctrine European not in The Western interfere
Monroe to nations warned Hemisphere. the
Can you put them in order?
The students should be able to put the words in order as a team correctly in under 60 seconds. The punctuation and (sometimes) capitalization are big clues.
SPOILER ALERT: The sentence should read, "The Monroe Doctrine warned European nations not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere."
21. Who, What, Where Charades: The student that selected this challenge must act out silent clues to get their teammates to guess who they are, what they are doing, and where they are doing it. I provide an index card with that information to the student before starting the timer. You could do something like, "Robert E. Lee surrendering at Appomattox Court House" or "George Washington leading the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia." To challenge your students even more, you might want to switch one or two of the who, what, or where so that they are silly and not necessarily historically accurate. Examples: "Robert E. Lee surrendering in an igloo" or "George Washington digging for gold in an airplane." You could also play this game as Who, What, Where Pictionary. This idea was inspired by a board game.
22. Head of the Class: The student who selected this challenge must balance a book on their head and answer 5 questions correctly. If the book falls, they must put it back on their head and answer 5 more questions. If they can balance the book until they have finished answering all of the questions, and they do so in less than a minute, they win it :)
23. Post-It Challenge: As you've probably read already, I have a bulletin board with a map of the U.S. in my classroom. Before the challenge, I write one geographic feature or region on each sticky note in a stack of post-its. I hand the stack to the student and start the timer as they must rush to throw all of the stickies on the board in the appropriate location before time runs out.
24. Bucket Head: The student who selected this challenge must answer three questions correctly and make three baskets, one after each question. The student must choose a teammate to hold a recycling bin or other bucket on his head. The bucket must stay on their head during the shot. They can move around, bend their knees, or jump, but they cannot take the basket off their head. I don't count it if the ball bounces out (the student must figure out a way to keep it in the bucket!).
25. Did You Just Flarp?: Flarp is a noise-making putty that comes in a plastic can. If you keep it in the container and move your fingers around in it, it will make some laughter-inducing noises. The student who selected this activity should stand 10-15 feet away from the flarp. They must answer 5 questions correctly, but after each correct answer the student must run to the flarp and make a flarping sound. The rest of the class should be quiet in anticipation for the sound. Once it's heard, the student runs back and answers another question (the rest of the class is usually giggling at the flarp sound). This is repeated until 5 flarp sounds have been heard or the buzzer sounds.
My final 10 Minute to Win It challenges are coming next week...
My final 10 Minute to Win It challenges are coming next week...
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