As the pandemic continues to rage on, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find activities to keep your students engaged and active while maintaining social distance between them. In this blog we look at 5 Covid-friendly classroom activities that you can implement in your classroom this coming year.
Yoga
Yoga has numerous benefits for mind and body and is also a classroom activity that is easily carried out in a well spaced environment on an individual basis. Push the tables and chairs aside to create space, grab some mats, have some age-appropriate moves lined up and get your class moving! Yoga will help to improve your students’ flexibility, strength and coordination while also promoting calmness and stress reducing practices. This pandemic has been extremely tough on children so taking some time to acknowledge this and giving your class some time to unwind is more important than ever.
Paper cup communication
Working on your student’s communication skills is an important goal and this can become difficult in a world of masks and social distancing. This is where the traditional paper cup telephone comes into play! Simply pierce a small hole in the bottom of a paper cup threading through a long piece of string securing it with a knot and attaching the other end of the string to a second cup in the same way. Each student has their own cup with a string attached that can be connected to other children’s cups. The children can then communicate by speaking into one end of the cup while another student listens. A really simple, safe classroom activity to practice storytelling, communication and listening skills. Each student can then summarise what the other student told them and practice their retelling and summarising skills.
Snowballs
Similar to paper cup communication, snowballs involve pairs using a piece of paper that they write a message on, scrunch up and throw across to their partner, sanitizing hands between throws. This classroom activity works on written skills and communication skills and is an interactive, socially distanced way to build on these skills. An alternative version of this activity is to use the paper as a collaborative tool where the two students develop a short story together. Each student writes a line then passes it back
Charades
A classic, but a classroom activity which is both fun and socially distanced! Change up the regular format in favour of themed charades such as animals. Have students take turns sanitizing their hands before choosing a slip of paper from a jar and acting out the animal they pull out until someone guesses the answer. Why not challenge your students to act out the animal without using sounds? This is a great activity to end a Friday afternoon with.
Hot seat
This game is an adaptation of both charades and 20 questions combined and is a fantastic way for students to work on their describing and word finding abilities. One student comes to the front of the classroom and sits with their back to the board. A word is then shown on the board which the student in the ‘hot seat’ cannot see. The other students must then try to describe the word without saying the word to the student who then has to guess it.
With the current limitations within the classroom considered and safe activities planned let us help you to plan your curriculum based activities. We created the Primary Planning Tool because we believe that effective teaching and learning starts with effective planning. Our tool is a NCCA curriculum aligned planning tool which allows your school to create, integrate and manage your long-term and short-term plans as well as Cuntais Míosúla and thematic planning. Get in touch with us here to arrange a demo.