Motivational Activities for the Classroom

Keeping kids motivated and working together in the classroom can be a tough job for a teacher to maintain throughout the school year. Using motivational activities in the classroom can help lead to a united classroom and motivated students who want to work together to learn. These activities can easily be implemented into any classroom as a helpful tool to teachers.

Lay out all the ingredients and tools necessary to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, including bread, peanut butter, jelly, knife and napkins. The class can be split into several groups or remain in one large group. Ask a member of the class to tell you how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Do exactly what the student tells you. For instance, if she tells you to put peanut butter on the bread, place the whole jar onto the bread. The students will get a laugh, but they will also get a lesson about speaking clearly and giving proper instructions. Repeat the entire process until someone can tell you exactly how to make the sandwich correctly.

Some schools already celebrate the 100th day of school, which serves as a celebration to break up the monotony of the school year. Students can be asked to bring in 100 small identical items, such as noodles, toothpicks, cotton balls or pieces of cereal. The students can then create artwork displaying these items any way they wish. Parents can send in treats so that there are a total of 100, such as cupcakes or treat-size packages of candy. One hundred balloons can be used to decorate the classroom. Celebrating the 100th day of school helps motivate students for the second half of the year.

Offering students a special activity upon completion of a goal is a good way to get them motivated. For instance, you can set up a reading contest for students to encourage them to read. Each student can come up with a reading goal, such as reading a certain number of pages per day or reading a specific number of books per month. Something that is fun and entertaining for the kids should be used as the reward, such as a sleepover in the gym for everyone who meets their goal or the principal will camp out in the parking lot if a certain percentage of the class completes their goal.

The Internet has become a large part of everyday life. Being able to navigate the Internet well means you can find any information you may need in life. Teachers can test their students' skills with the Internet by creating a list of questions to which students must find the answers. Teachers can use any subject they are covering with the class, but answers should not be found in the text books. Students will have to find the answers online. You can even require that students give you the location of the information so you can make sure they found it online.

This exercise helps students learn to work together without verbal communication. The teacher should ask the students to line up according to height, from the shortest to the tallest. Students are not allowed to talk during this exercise, which makes communication more difficult. Observe the students to see how they are able to get the job done. Once they are done, the teacher can ask questions about how they were able to complete the task, what they did to communicate and what obstacles the no-talking rule posed on the task. The students may also be able to come up with a more efficient way to complete the task.