By Anya Gray
As Christmas Approaches and we all open our chocolate advent calendar we at Westgate are opening our Teaching and Learning Advent calendar. We have had a number of different ideas for this week all listed below……. Have fun using many of these Teaching and Learning ideas in your classroom in the run up to Christmas.
(This will be updated daily)
On the 1st Day of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas greet your class at the door with a mini whiteboard with the words “Christmas is about reindeer and mince pies”. Students then have 2 minutes to use only these letters to write down as many key words linked to your current topic as they can
On the 2nd Day of Christmas
Christmas hats – lots of different activities are possible with these- thinking hats? Taboo activity? Guess the defendant? Differentiation activity?
On the 3rd day of Christmas
Get a couple of packets of Rowntree randoms and in groups of 3 or more get students to use the gums to link to topic/keywords etc you have taught! The wackier the better! These packs are full of different items great to get the kids thinking!
On the 4th Day of Christmas
Design Differentiated exam questions – correct answer gives you a piece of the puzzle. Then you have to make a puzzle – Great competitive revision.
On the 5th Day of Christmas
Use ABC to develop answers. Take an answer and ADD to it. Then get someone else to Build on it. Then Ask the class to CHALLENGE the answer
On the 6th Day of Christmas
Snowballing
1) Students write their name at the top of a piece of paper.
2) Students have a limited time (1 min perhaps) to write down as many key words about a subject as they can.
3) Screw up the paper into a ball and throw it at a designated point in the classroom.
4) Collect a random “snowball”.
5) Repeat the process as many times as you like adding to the list each time without repeating any words.
EXT: Students now have a full list of key words from a number of different students. Can they now: check for spelling mistakes; define the key terms; give examples; put in chronological order; categorise the terms…etc.?
On the 7th Day of Christmas
0 teacher prep!
Give students a topic then give them 10 minutes to write 1 correct statement and 2 incorrect statements – they then have to mingle with each other and try to identify the correct and incorrect statements.
On the 8th Day of Christmas
A Christmas Quiz to use in your lessons on the last Thursday and Friday. You can adapt it and make it suitable for your subject. Enable Content for it to work!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y71vackdc2jfsyu/Christmas%20Advent%20Calendar%20Quiz.pptm?dl=0
On the 9th Day of Christmas
Every pupil has a key word, concept or phrase stuck to their heads without knowing what it is.
The task is to circulate and see who can explain or demonstrate the word concept or phrase without using the word itself…
On the 10th Day of Christmas
At the end of a lesson as a plenary each student is given an A5 piece of paper and they must write a starter for the next lesson with the answer written on the back.
Students could be given a list of Key Terms where they must choose at least 3 for the starter activity.
Students are given a list of command words and must choose one command word to include in their answer.
The following lesson as you welcome students to their lesson hand them a starter activity to complete and in green students self assess their answer using the marking criteria on the back of the starter.
On the 11th Day of Christmas
Pupils can ‘tweet’ what they’ve learnt or ‘tweet’ a question which can be used at the starter of the next lesson. Also try and get them to come up with a hashtag for the lesson, as it gets the pupils to think about what was the point of the lesson, what did I learn! EG #Annotations #Thermoplastic #designing – the students are usually more creative at the hashtags than me!
On the 12th Day of Christmas
Give students a paragraph/sheet of a theory, information that they have already learnt.
Make sure you include lots of errors in the text.
Give students a time limit to find all the errors in the text.
On the 15th Day of Christmas
Mix and match – give students a number of photos of key words from your lesson. Students have to match the up and explain why they match. You can differentiate this with easier matches or more match ups.
On the 16th Day of Christmas
Piktochart a website that enables students to create info graphics. A simple way to present info especially for revision. These are snazzy and a great way to present a topic.
On the 17th Day of Christmas
On the 18th Day of Christmas
On the 19th Day of Christmas
Westgate Teaching and Learning 