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Birthday line up
Explain to students that you would like them to form a line across the room in order of their birthday.
The challenge is to do so without talking.
Give no further instructions, students need to work out with their class members: how to communicate their birthday (e.g. write it down, use their fingers, mouth the words, etc); which end of the room to start at; whether to include the year of birth/age or just calendar year. There is no right or wrong, the learning is in how students manage and communicate this challenge.
Once the students have formed a line, ask each student to call out their birthday to check the order is correct.
Ask students to explain what they found challenging, what strategies they found useful/not useful, observations on how decisions were made by the group.
Highlight the importance of clear communication and ways of clarifying what people mean. Non-verbal communication can be very helpful in clarifying our verbal communication, but on it's own can be difficult to understand.
Students can then be divided into groups by separating the line up into as many groups as required (e.g. 1st four students, next four students, etc).
Fruits
Choose fruits for the number of groups you would like to divide the class into (e.g 4 groups - banana, pineapple, grape, peach).
Go around the class allocating a fruit to each student - banana, pineapple, grape, peach, banana, pineapple, grape, peach, etc until all of the student have a fruit.
Students then find their matching fruit.
Alternatively, 'fruit salad' groups can be made. Students have to form groups with one of each fruit which gives them some element of choice of group members.
Fruits of different colours may be chosen to add an additional element to the grouping. This can be helpful if you would like the groups to sit at particular locations which can be colour coded with hoops, sticky notes, markers, etc.
Categories other than fruit can be used to fit with the theme of the lesson or to revise a previous lesson. E.g Different forms of contraception (IUD, pill, condom, rod)
Number bonds to 10
Using numbers from a deck of cards or self made number cards, ensure the pack has enough number bonds to pair for the class to form pairs.
Give each student a number card.
Students find their matching number bond to 10.
This can be adapted for groups of 3 or 4 (i.e. 3 numbers that add to 10 or 4 numbers that add to 10) or for number bonds to 20, 100 etc.
Coloured pegs
Different coloured pegs can be used to create groups of any size. These can be purchased for a few dollars from supermarkets and discount stores.
Depending on how many groups you would like (or how many students you would like in each group), allocate a colour to each group.
Pegs can be placed on clipboards, chairs or clothing to indicate grouping. (These may be selected groups or placed at random.)
Deck of cards
A standard deck of playing cards can be used to create groups of various sizes in a variety of ways. For example:
4 groups of 13 or less - hearts, clubs, spades, diamonds (remove cards from deck as necessary)
Groups of 4 - all kings, all queens, all fours, etc
Groups of 2 - red K's, black K's, red 2's, etc
Groups of 2 - number bonds to 10.
Take out the cards required to make the groups you need (e.g. 4 x kings, 4 x queens, 4 x jacks, 4 x aces, 4 x tens - to make groups of 4).
Shuffle the cards and hand one card to each student.
Students to find their matching group without talking.
Jigsaw
A very simple jigsaw puzzle is needed for this activity (e.g. 6 pieces = 6 students per group).
These can be made simply by using a picture and cutting it into 6 pieces.
This can be a different image for each group, or the same image on different coloured paper for each group.
Topic words can also be used with letters or sound blends cut into the jigsaw pieces.
Hand out one piece of puzzle to each student. (This can be randomly selected or pre-selected by teacher).
Students are to locate their group and form the full puzzle.
Additional challenge: Find your group without talking.
Additional challenge 2: Find your group within the length of a song or timer.
