Quick Quick-Me-Ups, by Doris Schuchard

Nature Finds
When the class is outdoors, have everyone hunt for a leaf, an object that is rough or identify a specific nature sound.

What Am I Counting?
Have one child start counting out loud an object in everyone's view: classroom windows, white t-shirts, kindergartners walking by. Can the class guess what the child is counting? As a variation, name an object and challenge the class to count as many as they can find in one minute.

Pass It On
Have students stand in a line or circle. Then have each child trace a simple shape O, X, 1 — on the back of the classmate standing in front of them. Can the child guess what was drawn?

Children can also draw their own version of a funny face. That child visually imitates the expression drawn on his or her back and draws a silly face on the next person. How accurate are the faces to those drawn on the back?

Who Is It?
Play classroom 20 questions by thinking of a student. Each child in line asks a yes or no question until someone identifies the "mystery" student. The identified student mentally selects the next "mystery" student and gives the first clue.

Body Mix-Up
Stand in front of the first child in line, touch your nose and say, "This is my mouth." How quickly can the child touch his or her mouth and respond, "This is my nose?" That child can turn to the next child and say, touching his ear, "This is my chin."

Mad Libs
Cross out nouns, adjectives and verbs in the story you're reading. Ask each child for a new word to replace the crossed-out ones. Read the new and improved class story.

Which Way?
Show which direction is east, west, north and south in the classroom or the schoolyard. Ask geography questions: "Which way to Hawaii?" "Which way should we drive to see a polar bear?" Have the children respond by facing the right direction or walk to the correct classroom wall.

Measure Me
Have children use their hands or fingers as rulers while standing in line. How many fingers long is their right arm? How many hands wide are their shoulders? How many hands tall is the person in front?

Categories
Choose a category such as animals, vehicles, countries or food. Each child has to name something that belongs to that group. Challenge students to work in A to Z order: ant, bee, cow. Or, you can name items like hammer, saw, level and the child responds with "tools." One more option is to have each word begin with the last letter of the previous word: Japan, Netherlands, Somalia, etc.

Balance It
Challenge students to balance a pencil on their head, shoulder, back of a hand. How long can they hold it there?

Class Art
Give everyone a pencil and paper and describe an object for them to draw. "Draw a square. Now draw an oval in the upper right-hand corner of your paper..." Compare their pictures to yours and see how accurate they were.

A variation on this is playing connect-the-dots on the chalkboard. The first person draws two dots and a line connecting them. Each person adds a dot and draws a line from one of the previous dots to his dot to make a design.

This activity can also be done by passing a piece of paper and a pencil down the line. Each child adds to a class picture.

What's Different?
Hide a student or object in the classroom. You can also write a sentence on the board and erase one word. Can your class guess what's missing? Reverse the exercise. Add an object or word. Can they guess what's new?

Flap Your Arms
Review facts by having students flap their arms if the statement is true: "Utah is the beehive state." They keep their arms by their sides if the statement is false: "The United States sent the first mission into space."

Listen Up
Tell or read a short story. Choose a word for which students can listen. When they hear the chosen word, they raise their hands.

Pass the Story
One student starts a story. Each successive person adds to the action, setting or characters. Pass out a bag of pictures. Each student pulls out a picture and describes how that picture fits into the story and moves it along.