Keeping social distancing in schools?
Well, this is going to be a new challenge for teachers in Portugal as schools are starting this week.
Finally, after more than 6 months and a period of distance learning, students are returning to a very different kind of learning.
Schools are adapting themselves to fit in according to the new rules.
Moreover, teachers are becoming aware that the traditional classroom games and activities that they used to play are no longer possible!
Have you already started school?
How are things going?
What has changed in your country?
Uncertainty With Keeping Social Distancing
There’s a lot of uncertainty, I’m sure!
For that reason, I have decided to put together this list of classroom activities that can be carried out while social distancing in the classroom.
These activities require interaction, sharing and content revision (one of the Government measures to overcome the learning differences created by Distance Learning)
All the 7 activities do not require students to share resources or to be close to each other.
The teacher can project or give each student a worksheet.
Some simply require the board.
Students may safely be sitting at their desks. If they have to stand up, they will stand on their spot.
All these activities are FREE to download, so I would appreciate If you subscribe to support my work. I will be glad to send you more free resources directly into your inbox!
Eventually, I hope you and your students have fun while playing these games and carrying out these activities in these first lessons.
7 ACTIVITIES To Keep It Real
1.Guess What Is What (teacher)
This activity is very simple. The teacher writes random stuff about herself/himself on the board or projects; students ask questions, trying to guess “What is what”.
For example, 2 is the number of my sons, 7 the number of houses I lived in, 52 the age of one of my best friends, etc.
Lisbon, the city where I was born; Mariana, the name of my grandmother; Amsterdam, my last travel, etc.
Students have a lot of fun trying to know things about the teachers, it brings us together and allows some revisions too.
2. Guess What Is What (teacher)
This is the same activity but for students.
They could do a Padlet under the title “Who Am I?” too.
3. Remember Me?
After 6 months apart students will find this activity very entertaining as well.
It allows for essential vocabulary revisions.
4. Stop Race
I have alread written about this activity in the post Last English ZOOM lesson? Here’s how to handle it.
Say the alphabet for yourself and another student says “STOP!”.
Give students the letter (A, B, C…or H) and ask them to write a PERSON, a PLACE or a COUNTRY, a THING, FOOD or a DRINK and finally a HOBBY or a SPORT that starts with that letter.
The first student to complete the three rows, says “STOP”. The goal is to not be the last one.
5. The 3 Words Game
The rules of this game were introduced in How to Beat Your Insecurities As A Language Learner
There you can read how I came up with this vocabulary game idea and figured out 6 different ways of playing it.
Download the PDF of the six different ways of playing THE 3 WORDS GAME!
So I have prepared “Revisions 1” and “Revisions 2”, two different levels. These are great for revisions too.
6. Kindness Acts
During times of global pandemia, ACTS OF KINDNESS are important no matter how little they are. They are crucial not only towards the others but also for ourselves!
This is a simple activity, I think the template shows it all!
7. What I Feel
This activity is probably for older students.
You may project the book titles and ask your students to choose one or two.
Give them time to organise their ideas and then it could be a very useful speaking activity. Students will probably start talking about what they have felt while they were at home and that can reunite the class again!
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I will be adding up new resources every week.
Great! Thank you
I’m so glad you liked it!
It means a lot!
Thank you in advance
Thank you for taking some time to read it! I hope your students enjoy the activities!
These are great ideas! I’ll pass them to my colleagues.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much for spending some time here! I really appreciate and it means the world to me <3