General General

Act It Out Move along Please

Instead of asking the class to reproduce their knowledge on a subject
or what they have learnt through a written or spoken method, ask them
to act out their understanding/learning.
In groups, pairs or solo, children create a short
performance that demonstrates the topic
they’re covering. Encourage children to
incorporate songs, music, or dancing into
the performance, to make the information
even more memorable!
Below are some ideas to get the children out of their seats and moving
at different points during a lesson:
• At some point during the lesson, ask the children to stand up,
cross the room and read or look at another child’s work. They
must give feedback to the person whose work it is and/or share
their feedback with the rest of the class or their group. Similar
to a mini-plenary.
• Create gallery walks in which children must travel around the
room to observe visual aids for different parts of a lesson.
• Organise the children into different groups to discuss and
answer each new question.

General • Organise stations or displays around the classroom. Children

move between each station individually or in groups,
completing a task or responding to a prompt at each station.
Listen Up!
This game will help children learn new vocabulary for a topic.
Introduce the keywords for the subject during the lesson and decide on
an action to go with each word, for example, clapping twice or stamping
your feet. Every time the children hear the word
being said, they must carry out the agreed
action for that word.
Try to say the words several times
throughout the lesson to keep everyone
on their toes!

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 General General

Answer with Your Feet Speed Sharing

When asked a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question or a ‘true’ or ‘false’ statement,
children must walk to the ‘yes/true’ wall, or the ‘no/false’ wall, depending
on what they think the answer is.
Alternatively, mark an A, B, C, and D wall/area
in the classroom and give multiple choice
options. Once the children have chosen
where they stand, they can discuss with
each other why they chose that option.
Write definitions, concepts, answers, ideas, quiz questions, etc. on
individual whiteboards.
Children form two concentric circles facing each other.
For 30 seconds (or a set amount of time), they share their knowledge
with the person opposite them.
The outer circle then rotates so that everyone has a new partner and
the sharing is repeated.
This can be done until the children in the outer circuit are back where
they started.

General General

Sticky Notes Group Concept Mapping

Get the children up and moving about with these sticky notes activities:
Set up tables around the room with a different central topic, idea or
• Match vocabulary to their definition. question on each.
• Match shape names to their pictures.
• Match number words to numerals. Individuals or pairs move around the room, adding
• Label parts of a book (cover, table of contents, title page, etc.). their ideas, responses or answers to each table
• Label text features in non-fiction. until they are full.
• Label parts of a plant, cell, human body, etc.
• Label or match basic classroom nouns for ESL students.
• Fill in missing numbers on a hundred chart, missing letters in words or
missing words in a sentence.
• Order the days of the week, months of the year, numbers, story
sequences, etc.
• Add ideas, feelings, questions or opinions to a board.
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 General General

Travel the World Movement Station

Designate different areas of the classroom as belonging to well-known When the children are doing a carousel of activities, try to incorporate
cities, countries or places. a movement station such as yoga, dance or ball skills.
• Each child must stand in the area belonging to a city/country/place Alternatively, get the children to do a quick workout in-between
that they’d like to visit the most. activities, such as some chair-obics.
• The aim is to travel to each of the designated cities/countries/places
in a clockwise direction as often as possible within two minutes.
• To move from one area to the next, a child must win a quick paired
game, such as Number Bond Shootout, with any other child standing
in the same area.
• The ‘winner’ is permitted to advance clockwise to the next area, while
the ‘loser’ remains in the same area and plays again against a new,
random person.
General
• The person who completes the most number of rotations (of all areas)
within the allotted time is the winner.
Musical Chairs
Number Bond At any point during the lesson, put on some music.
Shootout On hearing the music, the children must stand up (with their book or
The teacher calls work) and start dancing around the room.
out a number and the
first person to call out Once the music stops, they have to find an
Get the children empty space, sit down and continue working
to move in certain it’s pair to make
10, 20, 100 wins. on the task.
ways between the
different areas, This process can be repeated at any
such as hopping time during the lesson or even in-between
or jumping. timed questions.

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Literacy Based Literacy Based

Spell and Catch Word Classes

Children play catch with a ball or beanbag as they spell out different • Read aloud a paragraph or page of a book.
words by passing the ball and saying the letter at the same time for
• Identify different word classes the children or groups of children must
each letter of the word.
listen out for, such as verbs, proper nouns, adverbs or prepositions.
This could be done in pairs or between different
• Every time they hear their type of word,
class members to collectively spell out a word.
the different groups must perform an
action or exercise. Alternatively,
every time an action
verb comes up, the
children must act
it out.

Literacy Based Literacy Based

Relay Writing Verbs and Adverbs

This is a spin on collaborative writing. Pick a verb from a list of verbs or choose one of your own.
• You will need a group of approximately four and a Pick an adverb from a list of adverbs or choose one of your own.
sheet of paper per group.
Act out the verb in the chosen way for the rest of
• One child at a time must run to the paper and the class or a partner to guess.
write down one line of a story and then run
back to tag their teammate, who must
continue the story with one sentence.
• You can set a number of runs or just
keep going until they’re exhausted!

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Literacy Based Maths Based

Powerful Punctuation Fives

Make up different actions for the different punctuation marks. For • In groups of three or more, children must stand in a circle.
example, for a full stop you could punch forwards with one arm once;
• Moving round the circle clockwise, one player at a time guesses how
for an exclamation mark you could make a vertical movement from
many fingers will be put into the middle of the circle. Their guess will
top to bottom with an out stretched arm followed by a forward punch
need to be a multiple of five as each player can either open up their
at the bottom of the line and for an ellipsis you could perform three
hand with all five fingers showing or clench their fist with no fingers
punches in a row along a horizontal line.
showing. For example, if there are four people playing you can either
• Children perform the learnt actions as Make a short guess 0, 5, 10, 15 or 20.
the teacher reads a text aloud. twisting motion at • As the person guesses, all players (including the person guessing)
• Children use the actions to punctuate the wrist to make a must place their hand into the circle at the same time with either their
unpunctuated sentences. comma shape. hand open or fist clenched.
• The person guessing must then add up how many fingers are
showing by counting in multiples of five.
Maths Based • If their guess is correct, that person is out. If their guess is incorrect,
it moves on to the next person to guess and the game continues until
Calculation Tag there is only one player left.
• This game can also be played with multiples of two with players
Use a simple game of tag to help with addition, subtraction, counting putting in either two or zero fingers; multiples of three with players
up/back in certain multiples. putting on either three or zero fingers or multiples of four.
• All children start the game on a certain number of points,
for example ten points.
• Everyone can tag and be tagged.
• If they tag a player, they gain a certain number of points,
for example ten points.
• If they get tagged, they lose a certain number of points,
for example five points.
• After two minutes, see how many points the children have.
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Maths Based Maths Based

Trio Problem-Solving Take It Outside

Organise and number the children into groups of three.
Each group of three works on a problem.
After a set amount of time, the children
swap groups.
The ones stay where they are, the twos
rotate clockwise and the threes rotate
anticlockwise. Newly formed teams then
continue to work on the problem or start
a new problem.
Maths Activities
Telling time
Draw a large analogue clock with chalk and let the children physically
move around the clock face to help with telling the time.
Multiplication basketball
Count in multiples when shooting a hoop in basketball or aiming for any
sort of target with a beanbag or ball.
Number line run
Add and subtract using a life-size number line drawn with chalk.

Multiplication hopscotch
Maths Based Start at the beginning of the hopscotch board and roll a dice. Jump on
the number one, multiply it by the number rolled on the dice

Sharing Is Caring and say the answer out loud. Jump on the
two, roll the dice and multiply again. Repeat
all the way down the board.
Ask the class to independently solve a problem on the board. After
revealing the answer, instruct those who got it right to walk over to
someone who didn’t get it right to help them to better understand the
question and how to solve it next time.

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Move and Learn
Activity Cards