Five ideas for five extra minutes!

Sometimes your plan works perfectly. Sometimes you know exactly how long a lesson will take and you precisely time every moment down to the last millisecond. You are doing your final wrap up and finalizing exit tickets as the bell rings. Perfect timing.

But, alas, there are other times....

This is for those other times.

When it didn't take near as long as you thought it would.
When the assembly sent you back to class for just a few more minutes before changing to the next period.
 What's a teacher to do with a few extra minutes?!

 1. Line up with math problems. Each of my students has a student number. When we have a few extra minutes in class, instead of telling them all to line up at once, I call out math problems. They line up if their student number is the answer to the math problem.

 2. Let them write on the board. Students ADORE writing on the board. Ask them to write a quick fun fact about themselves. They get to write on the board and you get to learn something interesting about them. You might be surprised what you'll learn. You might be surprised that the shy child is almost a black belt in karate. You might be surprised that the one that is struggling in math is an excellent artist. I love learning new facts about my students! (And feel free to share something about yourself as well!)

3.  Two Truths and a Lie.  Have students write down two correctly solved math problems and one that is solved incorrectly. They are to move around the room and have others guess which one is wrong and how to fix it.

4.  List As Many As You Can.  If you are talking about equivalent fractions, tell the students they have three minutes to list as many equivalent fractions to 1/3 as they can.  They love the competition and want to be the one with the most!  This works for many different topics.

5.  Human Tic Tac Toe.  Divide students into two teams.  Place nine chairs at the front of the room.  Ask them quick questions about a topic.  If correct, the team sends a team member to sit in one of the nine chairs, trying to get 3 in a row just like tic tac toe.