Escape Room The Game

I was looking at TPT's Facebook page when I came across this: I thought it was a great idea that I could modify for my classroom.  I like the idea of putting a mini light on each student's desk. When there is independent work, students will turn their light on when they are complete. The teacher can instantly see who is still working rather than having to interrupt the class to ask the question. Also, once approximately half of the class is finished I can have finished students go and work with their buddies who are struggling (I am thinking about predetermining HIGH/LOW buddies this year).

I was fooling around Amazon as I am known to do and somehow I came across their section of giant games. How much fun would it be to have a few for the classroom to play review games at the end of class, review days, or at the end of the year?! Lights and buzzers for Jeopardy style review game. How awesome would this be for a Jeopardy style review game? I love the idea of this for questions that are worth certain amounts of points. I like the idea of taking this product by the Superhero Teacher and blowing it up! I am trying to figure out how I can use these large cards. Maybe writing review questions on them and you are not allowed to play them unless you answer the questions first? I love the idea of writing review questions on the balls and sticks! Write questions on the pigs with dry erase markers and you can't get the point unless you answer the questions. This one is a given

I started placing my students into groups about 4 years ago and it's been fantastic (Which I didn't expect). I realized last year that I never did anything to solidify the groups at the start of the year.  This year I have decided that once the pre-testing is over and I have separated the classes down into groups I am going to have them complete some team building activities.  I was in target earlier today and they had an entire section of STEM toys. That gave my the idea to use STEM toys as a team building activity. I am most interested in the Wonderology Rube Goldberg toys but they tend to get poor reviews on Amazon for being difficult. I still think they would be better than marshmallows and spaghetti ;) Here are the activities I have managed to find that I am thinking about so far. 

I tutor each week during the summer and one of the activities that I had my girls do this week was find examples of literary techniques in picture books. We went to the library and pulled picture books we loved or thought looked fun and went to work. I had them write down the:  Book title Author Topic the book focused on Why they felt that way.  These are some smart young ladies who found some really interesting items that I thought I would share with you! Topic: Problem and Solution Why: The bulb people built a snowman and he was melting so they rocketed him to chillsville.  Topic Cause and Effect + Character vs. Nature Why: Since Annie kept leaving out food more animals kept coming She has an issue with the animals being untrained at first Topic: Similes Why: Quick as a wink Topic: Verbs Why: Pilled, stayed, art, etc... Topic: Alliteration Why: Bear on a Bike Topic: Adjectives + compare and contrast Why: Why, warm, terrible, thick, quick One likes to live in solitude and one loved th