Well who would have thought it, I got lesson inspiration from watching an episode of Big Brother... Yes, you read correctly, Big Brother...
Teaching has officially taken over my brain.
But despite the unconventional source, this idea is actually a really great method of checking understanding in an energetic and kinesthetic way! Plus, it's a great way of helping your students burn off some those e-numbers after lunch...!
Teaching has officially taken over my brain.
But despite the unconventional source, this idea is actually a really great method of checking understanding in an energetic and kinesthetic way! Plus, it's a great way of helping your students burn off some those e-numbers after lunch...!
So, in a recent episode the housemates' challenge was to answer questions... (just like we do in school - and we all know how this can get boring and repetitive!). However, as this series is called "Time Bomb" (UK series) there is a time theme to most challenges. In this one, two girls were in a room full of clocks as seen below (although they were just printed clocks, not real ones!).
The concept was incredibly simple. The girls were asked a question and were given 3 options to choose from. The key was that each option had a certain 'time' allocated to it; the girls then had to work as a team to find the time associated with the correct answer! E.g.:
option 1 = 07.45
option 2 = 14:27
option 3 = 03:00
So how could we use this in the classroom? Well, you could also stick to the time theme as well if you wanted to review reading the time with your students - simply print out a variety of clocks on different coloured card and decorate your room with them! You can easily differentiate this by using 12hr/24hr options depending on the level of difficulty you desire. (I realise this is a secondary blog and you'd hope your teens can read the time by now, but believe it or not, one of the 25 year old women in this task was struggling......). Alternatively this would work great for teaching how to read time in a foreign language!
You can then do cross curricular learning by asking ANY questions on ANY topic and getting students to find the time associated with the answer!
It doesn't even have to be a clock though, it literally could be anything. You could use props or have keywords related to your subject that are printed on card and blu-tacked/velcroed on the wall. These props/words can then be allocated to an answer instead! You see? And you didn't think trashy TV could be educational... ;)
You could get students to work as a team, or you could even have a group competing against each other to "beat the clock" to run and find the right answer first! (See what I did there?). The first group to bring back the correct answer wins!
So, what do you think? What is your weirdest source of inspiration for a lesson? Leave your comments below!
option 1 = 07.45
option 2 = 14:27
option 3 = 03:00
So how could we use this in the classroom? Well, you could also stick to the time theme as well if you wanted to review reading the time with your students - simply print out a variety of clocks on different coloured card and decorate your room with them! You can easily differentiate this by using 12hr/24hr options depending on the level of difficulty you desire. (I realise this is a secondary blog and you'd hope your teens can read the time by now, but believe it or not, one of the 25 year old women in this task was struggling......). Alternatively this would work great for teaching how to read time in a foreign language!
You can then do cross curricular learning by asking ANY questions on ANY topic and getting students to find the time associated with the answer!
It doesn't even have to be a clock though, it literally could be anything. You could use props or have keywords related to your subject that are printed on card and blu-tacked/velcroed on the wall. These props/words can then be allocated to an answer instead! You see? And you didn't think trashy TV could be educational... ;)
You could get students to work as a team, or you could even have a group competing against each other to "beat the clock" to run and find the right answer first! (See what I did there?). The first group to bring back the correct answer wins!
So, what do you think? What is your weirdest source of inspiration for a lesson? Leave your comments below!