Quick Time Filler Math Game

Hello everyone! I'm popping in and blogging before I work a 1/2 day in resource.

Remember my quick time filler post? Click here in case you missed it :)

Well in that post I talked about several games/activities you can do if you have a few minutes of spare time to fill up.

In this post I want to talk about High/Low which is one of my favorite math games! The kids have fun and they are learning.

You only need a white board and dry erase marker or pen and paper. Just something to write with and on!

You set up your board with a t-chart and high on one side and low on the other.

Then you need to set a range (this is numbers 1-50). Younger kids could go lower and older kids can go higher. I've played 1-200 with 4th graders. Then you pick a number in the set. My number is 22. Kids raise their hands and you list the numbers. If the number they say is higher than your number, it goes in the high side. If it's lower, the low side. 

Pretty soon the numbers will narrow down and as you see it's between 21 and 24 and there are only two numbers to pick from and I circled  (well puffied actually) the answer. 

Simple, easy, and fun! The kids get competitive! With older students,  I start off and whoever guesses my number gets to come up and do the next round if there is time.

5

Quick Time Fillers

Remember my Monday Made It with the Crystal Light containers and duct tape?

Love the bright chevron!

Well my intention with it was to put sticks in it that had time fillers for when I had 5 minutes or less to fill up.

Bought some jumbo sticks. They had them at my Dollar Tree. So far this project is cheap!

I wrote down some fun games on the sticks.

• Spelling bee: Go from desk to desk and have them spell. Or do boys vs. girls
• Pictionary: Draw on the board and have the kiddos guess what it is. I try to relate it to what they're studying at the moment.
• I spy: Pick an object in the room and they guess what it is.
• 4 corners: One person is 'it' and they close their eyes. The other kiddos go to the corners in the room. It person calls out a number 1-4 and if kids are in that corner, they are out.
• Heads up 7 up: 4-5 kiddos are 'it'. The rest put down heads and thumbs up. If their thumb gets touched, they tuck it in. Call out "Heads up 7 up!" and if they were touched, stand up and guess who touched them.
• Telephone: Say a phrase or word and have it pass person to person.
• Hangman (or word man without noose lol): Kids guess what word. Again, I try to relate to topic/theme.
• High/low: Math game...I wrote a post for it.
• Who's the Judge: Person has back turned to class. One at a time the kids come up and talk in a funny voice and the 'judge' has to guess who it is.
• 20 questions: The 'it' person has an item/object in mind and the class has 20 questions to get it.
• Silent ball: Students sit on desks or in circle and toss the ball. Good for non verbal communication!
• Around the world: Multiplication facts or any subject really. 
• The silent game: This is to see who can stay silent the longest.

Hope this gave you some ideas for those short moments that you need a time filler. The kids I sub for really have fun with these.  These could be brain breaks too! 

9

Monday Madness

Well ok, it wasn't quite madness, but had bits of madness. I was in 2nd grade today and the teacher next door (also a sub for the day) grabbed my class and I had hers (they are dual kids) and I couldn't figure out why the lessons were talking about the other class but said that they were am. So asked the ladybugs (the others are butterflies) aren't you supposed to be in the other class. My response, "Well the other sub said so." Great, so I run over to the class and claimed my kids lol. So we switched. And then less than 2 hours later was the REAL switching time. And so I got the other kids that I had first again a second time. It was confusing, but the other sub and I were laughing and the kids handled it well.

Plus I got my rental car. And they were 15 minutes late. Seriously? I have a life/schedule too and now dinner is 15 minutes late grr :/ Oh well. What's done is done and I have the car. It's a Nissan Versa and it's pretty cute and it's blue!

Looks like this :

Wish I had that kind of weather!

Oh and how could I forget?!?!?!? I WON a contest. I won $50 to Teacher's Notebook from Learning With Mrs. Parker. How awesome is that?!?!?

And so my teaching topic today is time fillers. As a sub, I often have to come up with some of my own. I like doing crosswords or word searches if I know the kids theme/unit they are on, otherwise I can do generic ones. I also adore Mad Libs and have got the kids hooked on them!

I also play wordman/hangman, 20 questions, and a math game called high-low. Make a T-chart and one side is high , the other low. Pick a number between 1-100 or higher depending on the kiddos. They have to guess what number. For example, 22. If a kid says 50, that goes in the high side, because it's higher than 22. If they say 3, that goes on the low side, because it's too low. Eventually they should have it narrowed way down and they get the answer :) Love that game as a quick time filler and the kids are working with numbers and don't realize it!

I also love, for writing or getting them going in the morning, "If you..." statements. If you lived on the moon... or if you had any job... and then they write what they would do/be in that situation. So for today's freebie (I know it's not  Monday, but I'm crazy like that!) I made a freebie with a list of "If you" and 2 templates for writing. One has dotted lines for the younger ones and the other has just plain lines. Enjoy!

OMG brain fart!!!! Must add link :) Ok now try the pic hahaha :)

2