I have virtual class meetings with my students twice a week. They are not academic – purely for social and community purposes. I give each meeting a theme to give us some structure and something to do!
Here are the themes I’ve tried:
Would You Rather
I prepared a bunch of Would You Rather questions which turned into a whole bunch of silly discussions!
Show and Tell
Students brought something to show and tell the class about. Many brought pets, of course!
Pop a Joke
I asked students to bring a joke or a riddle to share with the class. Pro tip: Just stick with jokes… some of the riddles students brought were super long, super confusing, or borderline inappropriate. Jokes are a win-win!
Keep the Quote
Students were asked to bring an inspirational quote to share during the meeting.
Before the meeting started, I got nervous that students wouldn’t be prepared to share quotes and that we’d sit there staring at each other with nothing to do… so I threw together this quick questioning game on Google Slides!
The kids actually did a great job and were prepared to share many great quotes for us to discuss, but we did have time to work through this short slideshow before the end of our meeting.
For each quote, we…
- Read the quote
- Discussed what it means to us and our lives
- Guessed who said it
…then I revealed who said it!
It went SO well that I would love to share it with you! The “Who Said It?” Slides have been added to my VIP Free Resource Library. You can go grab it right now!
Not yet a VIP? Join right here for immediate access!
Game Day
I’ve tried both Kahoot and Quizizz, which we use often in my classroom.
Host a live game and share your screen so students can see the code and leaderboard. They can pull up a separate tab to play the game, then come back to the meeting screen as they finish.
I’ve found that Quizizz works much better for virtual class meetings. Quizizz questions are on the students’ screen, which eliminates the need to flip back and forth, which you have to do with Kahoot in order to see the questions!
Book Talks
Students were encouraged to bring a book to recommend to the class. (I told them ebooks on Epic were totally fine, too!)
They were expected to tell us the title of the book, the author, what it’s about, and why they recommend.
I didn’t have a ton of students participate in this one, but the kids who came prepared did a fabulous job!
Directed Drawings
I told students ahead of time that we would be doing some art and that they needed to have blank paper and a pencil handy for our virtual meeting.
There are tons of free directed drawing activities on TPT. I found a few that I thought my class would like, and I let them vote on two drawings we would do!
I used the printed instructions as a reference, and I use Google Canvas as my blank paper. During the actual directed drawing, I shared my screen so students could see exactly what I was doing, just like I would with a document camera in the classroom!
We just did drawings with pencils. I encouraged students to add color and details to their pictures after our virtual meeting. Some of them took pictures and uploaded them to Seesaw so everyone could see the completed art!
Pictionary
You can also use Google Canvas to play Pictionary! I made a list of things to draw for my kids (taco, pineapple, Georgia, my cat Gus… no judgement, okay?) and they yelled out their guesses. It was one of my favorites – quick and easy!
Scavenger Hunt
This is an easy one and a fun one.
Say things like…
- Find a picture of your family.
- Bring something blue.
- Look for something that rolls.
You get the picture! Let’s get kids up and moving even during virtual meetings.
Memory Day
On this day, I plan to have students share their favorite or most fond memories of the year. I’ve let them know they can prepare something to share if they want to, like a story, a video, or the end of year newspaper.
End of Year Luau Celebration
We’re still celebrating the last day of school, albeit virtually! Read all about our virtual luau (and grab the free invitations) here.
Need More Ideas for Virtual Class Meetings?
I have not tried these, but have heard these suggestions from other teachers:
- bring something you made
- two truths and a trick
- pet day
- dance party
Have so much fun!
