CLASSROOM GAMES TO KEEP YOUR PUPILS MOTIVATED
How do you keep your class attentive and motivated? Children are active creatures, and if sat still for too long they can quickly lose their focus. So, fun and engaging classroom games can be a great way to energise your students and help everyone to participate fully for the whole teaching period.
Energise your students through game play
We all experience energy slumps from time to time, particularly after lunch, when it’s very tempting to sit and daydream rather than concentrating on lessons. So, classroom games can be used as a quick way to inject a bit of energy and enthusiasm back into your students, as well as unifying the class in a joint pursuit. They can make lessons more enjoyable, leading to more motivation, better engagement and less disruption from bored pupils. Here are some ideas for fun and energising classroom games:
- Simon Says. One you may remember from your own childhood, Simon Says gets everyone active and forces them to listen carefully. Pupils must obey the teacher’s instructions whenever they are prefaced by the words, “Simon Says.” However, a command on its own without these two magic words must be ignored! This game can include lots of energetic instructions if you so wish – or can be used to calm students down at the end of the day if you prefer.
- Four Corners. Great for getting everyone up on their feet, Four Corners is a classroom classic. One student is chosen to be ‘it’, and they shut their eyes while everyone else chooses one of the four (numbered) corners of the room to move to. The remaining student then calls out a number, and everyone in that corner sits back down, before the game begins again.
- True or false. Lots of movement involved in this one. The teacher reads out a statement and the students have to decide whether it’s true or false. They move to the left side of the room if it’s true, and the right side if they think it’s false.
Positive design solutions for schools
Classroom games are a great way to help create a truly positive learning environment, where everyone feels good and, as a result, absorbs knowledge more effectively. Positive learning environments are made up of both physical characteristics and child-focused teaching styles. They have been shown to really aid motivation in pupils, helping them to enjoy their study, and consequently resulting in improved learning outcomes.
Here at Vertis, we can take care of the physical design and layout of your classroom to enable you to teach more effectively. Modern learning environments with flexible layouts and storage solutions are particularly conducive to game playing and other positive learning techniques.
Our classroom designs
At Vertis, we have the educational design expertise you need in order to deliver great solutions for your school. If you’d like to know more, check out some of the learning spaces for children that we have designed by browsing our modular classroom case studies.