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Enhancing Engagement And Skill Development With 15 High-Yield Activities For Elementary School (+Resources)

November 16, 2023 //  by Michelle Mandel

Reaching out to all teachers, educators, and parents. High-yield activities should be on your “to-do” list in class, and most people don’t even know what they are. High-yield activities are imperative for students to gain confidence and improve their critical thinking skills.  Hands-on activities that are engaging. Connecting different academic skills that will resonate with life skills for their future. Don’t worry they are not hard to learn and implement and the results are amazing!

1. Play Alphabet Soup

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Spelling is the key to the gifted reading. This activity consists of having letter flashcards (3-4 sets of the alphabet), and 1 set of vocabulary words that you make up. Letter cards are scattered on the table or floor- before calling out a word and in teams, students have to run and pick up the letters needed. Here are some fantastic high-yield spelling games for your students.

Learn More: Education To The Core

2. Get an “A” in Anagrams 

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Anagrams are a great way to get kids thinking and really using all their brain power. Anagrams can be done individually or in teams. Make it even more challenging by doing it by theme- animals, weather, presidents, or whatever you are studying at the moment.

Learn More: Sight Words Game

3. Boys & Girls Club High Yield Activities

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The Boys and Girls Club has been a second home for youth for over 50 years and they are leaders in education, guidance, and helping students reach their goals. Here is an amazing link to high-yield activities for youth. Pass it on and be a leader.

Learn More: Bgcutah

4. Online Free Critical Thinking Games

These awesome online games will make a fantastic addition to an IT class and will prove useful in developing your kids’ critical thinking skills. With Winky Think Logic Puzzles, you’ll challenge them to complete a series of games where they’ll grapple with basic concepts such as colors and shapes before moving on to more complex puzzle games.

Learn More: I Game Mom

5. Story Time & Chess = fun for children

Chess is a game that develops attention span and improves memory and spatial reasoning ability. In chess, concentration and memory go hand in hand. Teach your students how to play chess through this whimsical storytime book and board game. You read and play along.

Learn More: YouTube

6. Clever Math Games with a deck of cards

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Playing cards is a popular game that people have used to relax for centuries. However, nowadays we need to get out those cards and incorporate them into the classroom for some mathematical fun. There are so many benefits to card games and your kids will become number-savvy in weeks.

Learn More: We Are Teachers

7. DIY Scrabble

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Scrabble improves memory, vocabulary, focus, and strategy!  Make a DIY Gigantic Scrabble board for every corner of your class and have 6 children at each corner with one board in the middle. Rotate so that each learner plays each board once. They are all winners here as the objective is critical thinking and speed.

Learn More: Jenwood House

8. Literacy Time

Improving literacy is not so easy since we live in an era of digital technology. Playing word games inside and outside of the class can really benefit your child in developing their reading and comprehension skills. Here are some classic word games to get started!

Learn More: Mom Loves Best

9. Letter Arrangements, Word scramble, Crossword, and Word Hustle!

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These paper and pencil games used to be played at home, in the dentist’s office, on the bus, and on holidays. We have now moved to digital versions but cannot forget these games that gave us a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. Brain Games keep us on our toes!

Learn More: Word Unscramble

10. Leadership & High Yield Activities 

Teach your little ones about the intricacies of teamwork by inviting them to play a game of Gladiator! Begin by dividing your class into two teams before assigning a leader to each team. The leaders will then have to guide their teams to victory by encouraging them to work together to answer a series of trivia questions.

Learn More: Club Experience Blog

11. Cooking 

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When you think about cooking and teaching the skills of the craft, you probably think about tweens or teens. You would be surprised how beneficial it is to get kids into the kitchen at a young age and teach them math, sciences, reading, and even history whilst they’re in there! It is the perfect room for high-yield results.

Learn More: Tiptop Brain

12. Grade-Level Brain Quest Cards

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Brain Quest Cards are easy to manage and can be easily stored. Brightly colored and with easy-to-read questions and answers, these cards are great to have in different areas of the classroom. They’re available by grade level so you can involve all learners.

Learn More: Sharing Our Experiences

13. Activities with Mr. Erik!

Mr. Erik brings us some awesome videos and tutorials on high-yield learning activities to get the wheels moving in the brain. Let’s use them to have some fun! Empower yourself in education and learning with the help of these wonderful videos.

Learn More: Google

14. Engineer a Paper Plane

Part of being an engineer is building, testing, failing and rebuilding, testing again, and finally finding success. Kids love paper airplanes and all of the STEAM activities that come with them. Here are some ideas to get your flight aviators off the ground and one step closer to reaching for the stars.

Learn More: Teach Engineering

15. Sensory Learning

Sensory Learning plays a big part in the developmental stages of children. We as educators need to make sure that they do not lose sight of the big picture and let kids be kids with sensory play. Visual and Spatial learning are the two key factors here, not to mention listening skills.

Learn More: Inclusive Teach

Category: K-5

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