So happy to bring you a student engagement centered guest post today from the amazing Katie Powell! Katie's book, Boredom Busters, is one of our most-loved engagement books...so many ideas to use right away! She also wrote a fantastic classroom management book called Frustration Busters. Here's Katie...
Boredom Busters are easy to implement activities that leverage the science of attention and memory to engage students in playful learning without sacrificing depth. Most are designed to start with worksheets, since those are safe, accessible, and trusted. But let’s face it, the minute students’ fingers touch a photocopied piece of paper, a bit of their soul dies.
Want to change that narrative without having to abandon your teaching style or curricular resources?
Here’s one of my favorite Boredom Busters to start with:
Paper Airplanes
The Gist: Students fold their worksheets into paper airplanes and fly them around the room, then take the nearest one and work on that worksheet, continuing where the last student left off.
Materials:
- Worksheet
Set Up:
- Make one copy of the worksheet for each student. (Yes, that’s it! No extra prep!)
To Play:
- Have each student put their name on their worksheet and do the first problem.
- When they finish that problem, have them fold their worksheet into an airplane.
NOTE: Paper balls fly just fine. Call them snowballs or UFOs (now technically UAPs?).
- Students stand and hold their paper airplanes. (Make it clear their airplanes do not leave their fingers until you tell them to do so.) At your signal, they throw their airplane toward the other side or the middle of the room.
- Students grab the nearest worksheet and do one more problem.
NOTE: Students who find extra airplanes should hold them high in the air so others who are still looking can easily find them.
- Repeat steps two through four until the end of playing time or until the worksheet is finished.
- Students get their original worksheet back and evaluate all the answers on it, adding evidence to support or refute the answers.
Caution and Tips:
Make your expectations very clear as to when, how, and where the airplanes can be thrown.
Paper airplane tutorials are available online. You can share with students before doing Paper Airplanes.
If you’re concerned about trying something so active, tag students in as beta testers. Start small, just a few rotations of non-academic questions, and then reflect with students–Where were my directions clear? Where were they not? Where will other classes or students take advantage? What did you like? What did you not? What would you keep? What would you change? They’re far more likely to embrace and engage in an activity they helped create.
Variations:
Allow free choice of which problem to do (this allows uncertain students to do a problem they might be more comfortable with).
To save time, students can complete multiple problems each turn, play for a set length of time, or you can stop the game early and have students finish the worksheet on their own after they evaluate the answers on their page.
Paper Airplanes can be used with essay questions or multistep problems too. Students do one step or work for a limited amount of time, pass, and then continue the problem or essay topic they receive.
Students can all be working on the same question set or different questions, starting and ending with a question set just right for them but getting to explore the content in different ways while working with other students’ papers.
This activity can be used for trade-to-grade or to evaluate student work. Students grade the airplane they receive or pass their work and contribute one response of constructive feedback each round.
Not using a worksheet? Display or share a question each round and have students answer on notebook paper.
Have great rapport with your class? Let yourself be a target. A circular trash can lid makes a great Captain America-style shield.
Differentiation Ideas:
Need varied, leveled, scaffolded, adapted, or accommodated questions? Run them on different colors of paper. Students select airplanes of their designated color to continue.
Appropriate for:
Traditional worksheets of any kind
Essay questions
Multistep problems
Evaluating student work
Vocabulary lists to define
Open-ended or objective question types
And more!
Whether you use Paper Airplanes or another engagement idea, I hope you feel empowered to break the monotony and embrace playful learning.
Want more? Connect with me!
Email me at: teachbeyondthedesk@gmail.com
Instagram: @teach_beyond_the_desk
TikTok: @teach_beyond_the_desk
My website: www.teachbeyondthedesk.com
Thanks, Katie!!! If you haven't read her two books, Boredom Busters and Frustration Busters, I highly recommend them!!
Dave
