Check out these 4 unique activity suggestions for repurposing Game Show slides in your class!
I love the idea of repurposing old resources into new activities. In previous posts, we’ve discussed unexpected ways to use task cards and how to reimagine close reads. Today, we are talking about repurposing all of those activities you’ve acquired that use Google Slides or PowerPoint.
At Fun in 5th Grade, we have lots of resources that use Google Slides and PowerPoint. Some of our teachers’ favorites are the Game Shows and Digital Review Activities.
Many of our teachers have several versions of these activities which make them the perfect candidates for trying out some of the activities we are talking about today.
Each of the activities on this list asks teachers to simply print off slides from other activities they’ve already downloaded and reuse them to engage students in a different way.
How to print slides
For many of these activities, you will not want full-page slides. Instead, you’ll want to print multiple slides per page. To do this, simply go into the slideshow you want to print, select the file, then print.
Once the printing option pop-up appears, select the drop-down next to ‘Pages.’ You’ll want to change this option from ‘All’ to ‘Custom.’ At that point, you’ll be prompted to identify which pages you want to print. Pick the pages that have questions on them (for example, the question slides in one of the Game Shows).
Next, click on the arrow next to ‘More Settings.’ Adjust the ‘Pages Per Sheet’ to either 6 or 8, depending on how big you want the printed slides to be.
Then, push print! More on printing Game Show slides can be found in this post.
Activity #1| Egg Hunt
If you’ve been to a traditional Easter Egg Hunt, you are probably familiar with plastic eggs. In this simple activity, print off the slides you want to use, and place them in plastic eggs. Number the eggs, and hide the eggs around school or around your classroom.
Students will need to number a sheet of paper to correspond with the number of eggs. Then, they will go on a hunt. When students find an egg, they will open it, read the question, and answer it on their sheet. Then they will return the egg to its hiding spot.
This simple egg hunt can be completed with printed slides or task cards. It is easy to put together, and you can mix and match questions from various slide show activities or task card sets to create a whole new activity for your students.
Note: If you want certain teams to only pick up specific eggs, use the colors of the eggs to indicate which team is supposed to find them. The red team can find all the red eggs, and the yellow team finds the yellow eggs, etc.
Activity #2| Exit Ticket or Entry Ticket Notepad
Print off a bunch of slides from games your students have already played, cut the slides out, and stack them on top of each other. Put together enough for your whole class, and staple them together. At the end of class, pass around this make-shift ‘notepad’ and have students rip off the top sheet. Each student will answer the question and return it as their exit slip before they leave the room.
If you want to use it as an entry ticket instead. Place the notepad by the door and ask students to rip off the top question as they enter the room. Then they can complete it while other students are entering.
I really like the idea of printing off slides from every game your class has already used to create a whole bunch of notepads for use weekly in the classroom. The neat thing about this activity is that you can print off several copies of the same slides and make notebooks with similar questions because the chances of students getting the same question twice is not very high.
Activity #3| Using Slides as Posters
This is simple, after printing slides off (at full scale), pin them up on bulletin boards, on the classroom door, or even on the walls and cabinets. Then, just leave them there for a week or so. Students have a tendency to look around when they get bored, and these ‘posters’ will give them something educational to think about.
Note: Another place these ‘posters’ can reside is in the bathrooms or above the drinking fountains. These are places students will see the questions, read them, and think about the answers.
At the end of the week, ask students to go find all the posters you put up and bring them back to the room. Then, go through the answers as a class.
Activity #4| Game Show Slides Scavenger Hunt
Using the number values on the Game Show Slides (i.e., 100, 200, 300, 400, 500), print off a full set of game show slides, make sure each slide is clearly labeled with the category name and hide them around the classroom, hallways, or outside. I prefer the idea of taking this outside as it allows students to hurry a little more without fear of getting in trouble for running.
If you are only using one of the Game Show slide shows, you will want to split students into 5 groups or print off more than one set of questions and divide them into 10 groups.
Then give each group of students a sheet that looks like this one or ask them to create one. All they need on their sheet is the number values (100-500), a place to put the category, and a place to put the answer.
Next, students will be released to find their questions. Each group will run around and find one question to fulfill each level on their scavenger hunt sheet. When they find the question, they will take it down from where they found it, write down the category and the answer on their sheet, and then take the question with them as they go find a question that fulfills one of the other question values on their sheet. When they are all done, each group will have answered a 100-point question, 200-point question, 300-point question, and so on.
Each of these activities gives your students a chance to review previously learned skills in new and interesting ways. Repetition is incredibly important to learn new skills, and for many units, you could choose one or more of these activities even after your students have used the game shows in class.
If you have any other ways that you have been repurposing resource slides in your classroom, we’d love to hear about them and add them to our list. Leave us a comment and let us know how these activities work in your classes!
