Lose the Loose Time - Activities For Those Spare Moments

Do you find yourself struggling to think of short activities for those loose times in the day? How can this time be more productive and can we use it to harness children's enthusiasm and direct it towards their learning?

Here are some tried and tested 'loose time' activities used over the years. Here are just a few of my favourites ready for you to try.

The Power of Pictures!

Images are amazing resources that unlock students' creativity and get them asking questions. There is an abundance of visual literacy resources online. One of our favourites is pobble365.com.
 
Here you will find a treasure trove of pictures to spark rich conversation and get them asking questions. The Story Starters will get those pencils wriggling whilst Question Time develops that ‘oh so tricky’ skill (yes, we know this term is in debate) of inference.

This website can be used with maximum impact and minimum effort - it’s all there ready to go! It doesn’t matter whether you have two minutes or more; getting this into your daily routine is a game changer. 

Fantastic Films!

Who doesn’t love to escape into another time, place or life? As teachers, we are always searching for ways to drum up the kind of excitement in our own classes and leave our students inspired by what they have experienced.

Using visual media, such as short films or animations, can be great to kick start the imagination. A huge hats off to the team at Literacyshed.com who have put together great visual resources. What? No book we hear you say? We believe that stories are stories. No matter the form they come in it’s time to throw out the expectation that reading is simply taught using texts. The films you will find on Literacy Shed will draw experiences from every background and all of them are accompanied by a whole load of different ideas to promote deeper thinking and reading skills.

But what about reading? Well just about ANY reading skill can be taught through film; making connections, predictions, summarising, inference and character development. It’s also great for children who struggle with decoding. An activity like this can take as little or as much time as you like - from a 10 minute filler activity to settle the class after a busy lunchtime, to a whole lesson! ​

Motivational Music 

Music is an incredibly powerful tool in the classroom. There is a reason why we can remember song lyrics for our entire lives, but we forget what our teachers discussed an hour later. It can be used in so many different ways to aid learning and many of them we have all been doing for years. Who still finds it difficult to recite the alphabet without breaking into song? The potential for using music in the classroom extends way beyond this.

There is an abundance of great music out there that tell some great stories, use great vocabulary and are generally really useful in the classroom. Try having music on in the mornings as the students arrive and have a set of questions on the board to think about. “How does this song make you feel?”, “Have you heard a song like this before?”. Simple questions that ignite far from simple ideas and thoughts. 

Finally...

And finally, how about taking those loose moments of the day to get to know your students better.
Growing up, we both remember long car journeys listening to a programme on the radio called ‘Desert Island Discs’, in which the host would interview celebrities about the soundtrack of their lives. It would end and you would have a greater insight into that person’s life: their joys and triumphs but also their struggles and challenges.

Take this idea into your classroom and students have prepare short presentations on their favourite songs and why they are important to them. Play these presentations in those ‘loose’ times and just see what reaction you get. Go on, we dare you.

Hopefully you will find these ideas useful and have fun giving them a go! Remember, even though, for much of the day, it may be just you and your class, there is a whole network of people around you ready to offer support and ideas online!