One classroom management issue that can arise is student misbehavior during down times. Although we may try our best to plan lessons which use the entire class period, sometimes we get through the lesson quickly and have an extra five or ten minutes with nothing to do. What happens to the class? Most will begin talking to their neighbor, doodle on the desk or a notebook, and participate in other off-task behavior. Instead, we need to keep our students occupied so that misbehavior is kept to a minimum. Some teachers may argue that their students need this down time to relax. It is a nice thought, but I’ve seen too often how this “R&R” time can turn into major chaos.

First of all, we need to make the most use of our time with the students. Secondly, unstructured time is simply an invitation for misbehavior. This does not mean that we must provide worksheets for students to complete during this unexpected lull. We can provide fun, challenging, and yet learning activities for students. Below are some ideas for primary, intermediate/middle, and high school to help get you started.

When you need to fill five or ten minutes:

Primary

Identify items in the room by color, shape, numbers of sides, starts with the letter “__”, etc.

Count by 2’s, by 5’s, or by 10’s to a specific number.

Do jumping jacks or stretching exercises “Fingers to the sky – fingers to the ground.”

List the ways we use water.

How many words do we know that start with the letter “__”?

Drawing or Saying “What If” – What if you were an animal? Say/Draw what you would be. What if you were a car? What if you were in a book? What if you were a plant? What if you were a building? What if you were from a different planet?

Sing a song

Read a picture book

Intermediate and Middle

Fast Facts – Math works especially well with this – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division facts

Quick List – Quick, list three things that… (review facts learned or stretch the brain) ex: Quick, list three things we learned today; Quick, list three things about plants; Quick, list three things that cats and elephants have in common

Word challenge –go around the room and have each student say a word starting with the same letter within a time limit.

Word challenge 2 – Give a category or a set of categories and have students come up with words for each that start with a specific letter. You might even have students work together in groups for this.

Choose a large word from the dictionary or use a word from your unit of study to have students find as many other words using those letters as they can.

Twenty Questions – Students use 20 questions to guess an object chosen (Use objects in the room or from unit of study)

Charades – Students use clues acted out by another to guess the phrase, movie, object, etc. (Use ideas and objects from your unit of study)

Minute Mysteries – Students ask Yes/No questions to solve the mystery. These are available from MENSA and in bookstores and are short “stories” with a misleading twist. Students test assumptions through questioning to determine what really happened.

Word Challenge 3 – Use a starting word from your unit of study. Have each student create a new word using the last letter from the previous word stated. On point per word created and bonus points for using another word from your unit of study should be awarded. A time limit to go around the room will challenge students to think quickly.

High School

Pose ethical “what if” questions such as: Is it ever okay to run a red light? Suppose you buy something and are given more in change than what you are owed? How would you react if someone you think is physically unattractive asks you on a date? Etc. – There is a series of books titled “What Would You Do” that poses several of these types of questions along with additional “what if” scenarios.

Pyramid – Students pair up and one person in each pair is given a list of words from the unit of study. They then have to get their partner to say these words by shouting out clues. This must be done in a certain time limit. Ex: “Atom” = clues of “small particles, building blocks of everything, has protons,” etc. would be offered.

Word Challenges (listed above) are also good time fillers for high school units. You might tighten the time limit to make it more challenging.

What if you were ______ (historical figure, main character)? How would you have done things differently?

What are two positive things that happened to you today?

How have you helped one person today or this week?

Debate – Have students participate in a two or three minute debate of the pros and cons of ________(different elements in your unit of study).