A good way to add some texture and variety to your classroom activities is to personalise your PowerPoints and other materials. I often like to insert photos of students into my PowerPoint decks. For example, in a vocabulary review slow-reveal presentation, the children will be expecting a car, train, or a bus, and they’re baffled as to why they can’t figure out what is being revealed… but eventually, someone will work out that it’s none of those, it’s SAM!
Other teachers like to superimpose the heads of some of their students onto heads of children in the PowerPoint slide.
Of course, you need to be sensitive about the children you choose to do this with. Its probably not a great idea to use an image of a child who is shy and reluctant to participate in class.
Another example that I saw recently involved a Starters ‘running dictation’. The task was to copy letters of the alphabet. In order, the letters spelled the name of their recently departed teacher! The kids get a kick out of that when they figure it out.
