Blog
Starter Activity - The Crystal Ball
22nd July 2009
This is one of my all time favourite starter activities..a belter if you have an interactive whiteboard.
On the board..I have a picture of a fortune teller looking into a crystal ball..a picture I just got from google images..I then tell the students something like..‘I am thinking of 3 key points about primary research..what are they?’..
I then give the students a post it note each and invite them to write down 1 thing that the ‘fortune teller’ is thinking of
On the next flip chart page I have a picture of a crystal ball and 3 key points ‘hidden’ underneath the image. The students then come up and put their post it notes ‘around’ the crystal ball. I then ‘pull’ out the 3 key points from underneath the crystal ball to reveal what the fortune teller was thinking of.
This can easily be done with the image on powerpoint. It doesn’t matter what the 3 points are..at the end of the day..you have a board ‘full’ of post it notes about the topic the fortune teller is thinking of.
This is such a powerful activity as the students can think of a plus point, a minus point or anything else about the topic. This makes it open ended to allow the students to think…and because you are only asking the students to think of ‘one’ point..it increases the chances that they get one of them right.
Enjoy…