Recently I have discussed how student “downtime” or “dead time” during a lesson might lead to classroom management issues and how teachers should have pre-planned activities ready to go for when this happens.  In a recent post I mentioned “cool down” activities that are independent, student-led activities.

However, teachers should also have a number of teacher-led “sponge” activities ready to go on a moments notice.  Sponge activities are great for those days when a teacher’s lesson falls short of using the entire class period leaving the teacher with potential classroom management issues.  However, sponge activities can also be used while standing in line, waiting for dismissal, or whenever the need to eliminate downtime arises.

Again, these are different then the “cool down” activities as these are teacher led…

Here are a couple of examples…

1. Categories
This is a sponge activity in which the students have to guess what “category” the teacher is referring to.  For example, a teacher may say, “Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington…” and the students are supposed to guess the “category”…which is obviously…Presidents of the United States.

This can be done with any subject area and any grade level.  Here is another example…”2, 8, 4, 10″…(category…even numbers)

2. You Can Have…But You Can’t Have…
This sponge activity is similar to “Categories”, but in this activity the teacher provides an example and a non-example of a concept and the students try to guess the concept.

For example, “You can have Tampa, but you can’t have Florida”…”You can have San Francisco, but you can’t have California” (concept is…city, but not its state)

Remember, effective sponge activities are short, require little or no materials, are easy and fun. 

Sponge activities give teachers an opportunity to reinforce previously learned material and most importantly, decrease the likelihood of classroom management problems.

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