In this blog post, teachers will find socially distant indoor recess ideas. Indoor recess is always a challenge on inclement weather days, but students usually rise to the occasion and enjoy playing games with their classmates. Sharing of items will not be permitted during Covid-19 so I have come up with a list to help out fellow teachers who are unsure what their students can do during this time. This blog post contains a sponsored link that is of no cost to the reader.
During one of our back-to-school meetings, my principal told us to start brainstorming indoor recess ideas as students will have to remain seated in their desks and not share materials (i.e. games) with other students. This is a huge change as normally during indoor recess students get up and mingle around the room. Prior to Covid-19, my students loved playing board games and card games if there was a 40-minute indoor recess.
Here is a list of possible indoor recess ideas:
- Listen to podcasts. Here is a list of interesting middle school podcasts.
- Watch the school district-provided streaming videos.
- Play class-wide games projected onto the whiteboard via the projector (teacher gets answers from students and clicks the mouse).
- Cell phone games like Kahoot, Quizziz, Quizlet.
- Riddles
- Scattergories
- Mad Libs®
- Whiteboard games i.e. Tic Tac Toe (teacher vs the class and teacher writing on the board).
- Watching online animal live streams (YouTube has a kitten one and many zoos have cameras set up).
- Give each student their own pack of playing cards and teach them how to play Solitaire.
- Create individual bags of Lego and post a daily challenge on the board.
- Give each student a sketchbook.
- Class I Spy game.
- Encourage silent reading.
- Play Would You Rather
- Project a Where’s Waldo page under a document camera and have students find Waldo and all the accessories list.
- Teach students how to play online card games like Solitare. One student can sit at the computer and move the cards. Each student can get a turn sharing which card they want to move. The Solitaired website has other online games which would be fun to teach students how to play.
Other Great Classroom Management Tips
- Classroom Management Strategies For Middle School
- Effective Middle School Classroom Management
- 10 Tips For Teaching Middle School Students
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