by Rachel Wells
No one want to be in a classroom full of students, with 10 minutes left and nothing to do. That’s where time filler activities come into play. Time filler activities are great to have in your teacher toolbelt because they require no set up time and keep the learning and engagement going even when you only have a few minutes.
Not only are these time filler activities a great way to squeeze in all the learning and fun you can into the school day, but they also give students ideas on things that they can do in the future when they feel bored or don’t know what to do with their friends.
Read
Have a chapter book handy and read a chapter to your class whenever you get a chance.
Community Building Meeting
Host an impromptu class meeting where students can share, reflect, make goals, tell jokes, etc.
Speed Spelling
Give students one minute to write a spelling word (spelled correctly!) as many times as they can on a wipe off board. The person who writes it the most amount of times correctly gets to choose the next word for everyone to write.
Never Have I Ever
This is one of those games most people have played at least once in their life – and can be easily adapted to be kid-friendly. Each player starts by holding up 10 fingers, and each time a player has done what the question asks, they’ll have to put one finger down. The person who gets to only one finger left sticking up first is the winner.
Example:
Never have I ever broken a bone.
Never have I ever laughed so hard I peed my pants.
Never have I ever had bird poop on me.
Never have I ever done an escape room.
Never have I ever been on an airplane.
Never have I ever gone on a roller coaster.
Never have I ever gone surfing.
Never have I ever played a musical instrument.
Never have I ever gotten stitches.
Never have I ever held a spider in my hand.
Never have I ever seen a double rainbow.
Guess My Number
Think of a number from 1-50 or 1 -100. Students can ask only yes or no questions to figure out the number you’ve choose. Encourage them to ask questions such as even/odd, the digits in a particular place value, and higher/lower. Require them to ask at least 5 questions before guessing.
5 Second Rule
The object of the game is to be able to name 3 things within 5 seconds (i.e. 3 types of cereal, 3 sports teams, 3 words that start with the letter Q, etc.) Have students sit in a circle and choose a student to go first. If they can name 3 things from the category in 5 seconds, the next student in line must do the same – name 3 things from the same category as the student before, however they cannot repeat any answers from the previous student. Continue going around the circle until a student cannot come up with 3 things or repeats an answer that another student already said.
Still As a Statue
Have students to get in a line and stand as still as a statue. After 30 seconds, pick the student who you think is standing the most still. That student will come to the front of the room and become the judge – picking the next best statue after 30 seconds.
Count Up Stand Up
To play, first choose a number that the class is going to count up to. It’s good to start small with the number 5 or 10. Next, tell students that their challenge is to count up to the number you choose. To do so, one student must stand up and say the number 1. Then, another student must stand up and say the number 2, and so on up to the chosen number. Any student can stand up at any time and say the next number, but if 2 students stand up at the same time, then the whole class loses. If the class is able to get to your number without 2 students standing up at the same time, the whole class wins.
Hot Seat
To play, have one student sit in the ‘hot seat’ at the front of the class facing away from the board. Then display a word on the board and ask the rest of the class to describe the word without saying the actual word. The student in the ‘hot seat’ should guess what it is.
Pass The Ball
To play, all you need is a small soft ball and some music. The rules are simple. Pass the ball when the music is playing, and when the music stops, the student with the ball must answer a question from the teacher. You can keep tally of the points to see who can get the most or just play round by round.
20 Questions
In this classic game, you think of an object or a person and then students will have a maximum of 20 questions to guess what you are thinking of. Each question should be a ‘yes/no’ question. Since students need to ask questions strategically to narrow down the possible answers, it’s probably best to give example questions at the start of the activity – questions like “Is this a person?” or “Is this alive” for example, can help them get to a final answer sooner.
Writing Notes
Give students permission to write each other notes. The only requirement is that notes should contain a compliment, fun fact they learned, or another positive message.
Ticket to Leave
Give students a Post-It note and have them write something they learned that day on it. This is their “ticket” out of the classroom for the day, and they will need to stick it to the door on their way out.
Rhyming Circle
Have students sit in a circle and choose a word. The goal is for everyone to say a rhyming word in the circle. If someone can’t think of a rhyme then you have to start over.
Make up a Group Story
Have students sit in a circle and choose one student to start. That student will say one sentence to begin a new made-up story. After their sentence, the next student will add a sentence to the story, and so on until everyone has added a sentence to make a complete story together aloud. Remind students that the story has to have a clear ending when it gets to the last person.
Fortunately, Unfortunately
This is similar to the group story above, except in this version students will take turns starting their sentence with fortunately or unfortunately. This game is bound to get silly, but it’s always really fun!
Example:
Student 1: “Fortunately, I found a treasure chest at the end of the rainbow!”
Student 2: “Unfortunately, the treasure chest was filled with fish sticks.”
Student 3: “Fortunately, they smelled really yummy.”
Student 4: “Unfortunately, they tasted really bad.”
Play Pictionary
Play Telephone
In this classic game have students stand in a line and whisper a short phrase into the first students’ ear. They will then need to whisper the phrase to the next student, and so on down the line. The last person in line has to the say the phrase out loud for everyone to hear and hope that it’s the same message the first student was told (spoiler alert – it most definitely won’t be!)
Check out this post 25 Fun Time Filler Activities for even more ideas!
