Classroom activities

[MisterLove]

I'm a high school teacher in Portugal and I'm always looking for ideas to keep my Economy students busy.

I work with the toughest students you can possibly imagine: 16 - 19 y.o., totally unmotivated, most of them from the local slums.

A couple of recent activities that worked really well:

1 - Music archive: they had to listen to 100 mp3 files and organise them

2 - Creative writing: each one wrote a sentence and in the end we got a complete story

3 - Treasure hunt at the local book fair

4 - Ride on the local ho ho bus

5 - Photomarathon in the streets of the historic district

Any other tips?

Thanks in advance!

[Kiid]

Yup you got the worst age range. High school kids (especially boys) brains don't function properly. So they are up to all kinds of dumb stuff.

I don't have any advice other than enjoy the fu k out of what you do and be passionate. Try to get the most out of every student you can. Tho some can be hard to.

[MisterLove]

Yup you got the worst age range. High school kids (especially boys) brains don't function properly. So they are up to all kinds of dumb stuff.

I don't have any advice other than enjoy the fu k out of what you do and be passionate. Try to get the most out of every student you can. Tho some can be hard to.

Thank you for your encouraging words, Kiid. Believe me, I really need them right now.

[Spades]

Ask them if the were the president of Earth, what would their first decree be?

Other than that, good luck! It takes a brave man to educate someone elses kids!

[MisterLove]

Ask them if the were the president of Earth, what would their first decree be?

Other than that, good luck! It takes a brave man to educate someone elses kids!

Thanks, sweetie.

Now imagine this: you take the worst students and put them all in one class. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Well, that's what I have to deal with. It's called CEF and it's a measure taken by the Portuguese government to improve national statistics.

[OrphanPip]

Seems to me that the activities should in part be directed towards the subject for the course shouldn't they?

I haven't any suggestions really though.

[deejayarens]

How about discover an indie artist as one of the items?

[Wade]

Don't listen to OrphanPip. Teaching students the subject of the class is sooooo last millennium.


There's a whole lot of things you can occupy their time with. You could buy six hundred decks of cards and scatter them all across the room and have them play 31,200 card pick up. You could knit the world's tiniest sweater vest and put it on a frog and hide the frog somewhere in the city. Whoever finds it gets a cheetoh. You could stick a hose through the window of the class room and let it run all night, and then in the morning make them try to remove all the water using only the back part of their knees.

C'mone man, think outside the box.

[MisterLove]

Seems to me that the activities should in part be directed towards the subject for the course shouldn't they?

I haven't any suggestions really though.

All the activities I mentioned were related to the subjects I had to teach - e.g. the music archive was part of the lessons on archive techniques. But there's nothing wrong with doing something different every now and then, as long as it's fun and educational.

[MisterLove]

Don't listen to OrphanPip. Teaching students the subject of the class is sooooo last millennium.


There's a whole lot of things you can occupy their time with. You could buy six hundred decks of cards and scatter them all across the room and have them play 31,200 card pick up. You could knit the world's tiniest sweater vest and put it on a frog and hide the frog somewhere in the city. Whoever finds it gets a cheetoh. You could stick a hose through the window of the class room and let it run all night, and then in the morning make them try to remove all the water using only the back part of their knees.

C'mone man, think outside the box.

Don't forget the karaoke and pajama parties.