Year 11 balloon towers

Year 11 took this really seriously!  There was much concentration and discussion about how their towers were to be constructed!  There was also much more popping than with the year 8 class!

Balloon Tower update!

Did the balloon tower today with Year 8 - so much fun (and a little chaotic and very loud!).  Started off by brainstorming the topic areas that we have learnt.  Then they had 10 balloons per group - 1 per topic area and they had to write a minimum of 10 items on each balloon.  At the end, they had to construct a tower with sticky pads and the tallest one won.  Of course, they could only use the balloons they had written on!

Of course, the best bit was popping all the balloons at the end of the lesson; apologies to whoever has a room under mine - it was rather loud!

Balloon tower

Again, this is from my friend Charline.  You need:  a pack of balloons, permanent markers, sellotape!
Divide class into groups.  They have a set amount of time to write 15 facts/pieces of vocab etc onto each balloon.  They have as many balloons as there are topic areas (They blow them up themselves).  When the time is up, they then have a limited time to build a tower with their balloons and sellotape.  Tallest tower wins.  At the end, they could use the vocab or facts to relay the information back to you - for points of course!  Obviously this could be adapted and I look forward to hearing how you use it - comments please!
Great revision idea!

Poker face!

Hi!  It's been a while!  I would like to thank Charline Baude for this idea of class poker.  This is a game that you can easily play with the whole class, with little (or no) preparation.  Divide the class into 2 teams.  Shout out a piece of vocab, a question etc.  If the pupils know what the 'answer' is, they should stand up.  The team with the most pupils standing up wins a point.  They can bluff, so they could stand up and not know the answer; however, they have got to be prepared for you picking someone at random and asking for the answer!  This is great for revision, especially with older classes.  You could adapt it and get them to play it in groups, but for this they need an odd number of players, so someone can be teacher and you may also need to provide them with the materials for asking the questions.

Photo Credit: Giovanni 'jjjohn' Orlando via Compfight cc