Each week my teaching partner and I host a class Zoom to connect and have fun with our kids. The challenge has been coming up with ideas that the kids will enjoy and require little preparation for both us and our students.

Fun with Zoom

Here is a list of ten ideas that will make your next Zoom a hit with both you and your kids!

Show & Tell

Our first fun Zoom was a class Show & Tell! This was super easy to prepare for, as all we had to do was send out an announcement to the kids to find something that they wanted to share with their classmates. The kids simply took turns sharing their special something.

Guess Who?

This week we played a fun game of Guess Who! The students were told in advance to come up with a weird or unusual fact about themselves and not to tell it to any of their friends prior to the game. The only other materials needed are a piece of paper and a writing utensil. Once in our Zoom, the students were told to send the fact to the teacher using the Chat feature. Make sure the students send it only to you and not to everyone. Then start with the first fact that was sent to you and read it aloud to the group. Everyone takes a few seconds to write down their guess as to who it was about. Then ask the person to reveal themselves to the group! If you guessed the correct person, you give yourself a point!

Scavenger Hunt

We did our first Zoom Scavenger Hunt last week, and the kids loved it! I created four Editable Scavenger Hunts that you can find in my TPT Store or just make up a quick list of your own.

Good News

I love this idea, and it is definitely something we all could use more of right now! Ask all your students to bring some good news to share with the group!

Art Hub

We have used Art Hub at school for an indoor Fun Friday option, and the kids really enjoy it! Tell your students to bring paper, pencil, and coloring utensils to the Zoom. Before the Zoom, go to Art for Kids Hub and choose the video you would like to show. You may want to start the video in advance, so you can get through the ad at the beginning. Then once you are in the Zoom, share your screen with the students and play the video. At the end, have all the students hold their pictures up to the camera so everyone can see them!

Hide & Seek

No prep is needed to play Hide & Seek on Zoom! When you are ready to start playing, have all your students turn around and face away from their devices. Then choose one person to send back to the waiting room. Tell everyone to turn back around, and see if they can figure out who is missing!

Four Corners

Four Corners is an oldie but goody when it comes to classroom games! Four Corners Zoom version can be done a couple ways. Have one student be the caller, and he/she will turn around and face away from their device. Everyone else then indicates which corner they are choosing by either holding up a number with their fingers, or designate particular corners of everyone's video box as a number. If you do it that way, each student would point to the corner they are choosing. The caller then announces a number, and everyone who had chosen that number is out. Have all the students who are out because their corner was called, stop their video. This will make their video box go black, and you will be able to tell who is still in the game. The last person in is the winner and can be the caller next time!

Charades

To prepare to play Charades, you need to come up with a list of verbs that are easy to act out like fishing, sleeping, driving, swimming, etc. One person at a time takes a turn as the guesser, and they turn around and face away from their device. Everyone is muted except you and the guesser. Write the word on a piece of paper and show it to the rest of the class. Then, have the guesser turn back around. Everyone acts out the word, and the guesser tries to figure out what the word was.

Hangman

Another oldie but goodie is Hangman. Before your Zoom, come up with a list of phrases for your students to guess. Maybe they could relate to your curriculum in some way such as...General George Washington or Remember to annotate the text! Have the blanks for the phrases already written out on paper, and you are ready to go!

Talent Show

Kids love showing off their special talents in a Talent Show! At our school, we had a fifth grade talent show every year right before school got out for the summer. If you are going to have a Zoom talent show, I would give the kids a couple weeks notice, so they can begin practicing what they want to share.

Check out more ways to Connect With Your Kids While Distance Teaching!

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