There are so many different ways to use Would You Rather prompts in a classroom. Outside of school, we’ve been asking our own kids questions like these for years. To pass the time on long road trips? Yes. When planning birthday parties? Yes. Even in the kitchen most mornings… “Would you rather have waffles or eggs?”
Then at some point, these became questions we started asking in our classrooms. It makes sense, actually. There’s quite a bit of thinking that takes place before we can comfortably make a decision between two good choices.
Well, unless one is an obvious non-choice. I will never pick anything that has anything to do with frogs.
Gross amphibians aside, sometimes the decision takes a little more time to make. Like, maybe being famous would be fun… until it isn’t. What are the cons? What would I be famous for? Would people always be wanting to talk to me? Yeah… I think I’ll skip being famous, lol. Meeting a famous person will be good enough for me.
But which famous person?? Ugh.
And that’s the gold. When kids interact with Would You Rather questions, they’re reasoning, comparing the pros and cons, visualizing scenarios, making choices, expressing opinions, and actively listening to others… all skills we think are pretty important.
WOULD YOU RATHER QUESTIONS
If you aren’t already using Would You Rather prompts in your classroom, we’ve got some ideas and resources to help you get started.
We love these no-prep digital slides. Whether you use them daily or weekly, there are plenty to choose from. These are our favorite ideas:
- icebreakers
- getting-to-know-you activities
- team-building exercises
- morning meetings
- brain breaks
- conversation starters
- opinion writing lessons
- morning work journals prompts
The questions can be used to develop verbal and/or written skills. All work well for helping children…
- develop expressive language
- deepen interpersonal skills
- practice engaging conversations
- learn how to reason, decide, and explain thoughts and opinions… possibly persuading someone else to change their mind
We’ve created Would You Rather sets for our K-2 classrooms… full of questions to get our kids thinking:
- Would you rather be as small as a bee or as tall as a giraffe?
- Would you rather eat dinner at the White House or eat dinner at your teacher’s house?
- Would you rather be lost on an island or lost in the mountains?
How you use the slides depends on the skills you want your students to develop. For example:
- Display one slide as the children arrive in the classroom. They can respond in their morning work journals or be thinking about their responses for the morning meeting.
- Using the prompts verbally helps children strengthen relational and conversational skills… great for building teams and classroom community.
- They can also be used in written contexts, such as during opinion writing lessons.
- Would You Rather prompts also work well as transitions between lessons or as brain breaks. Kids can respond with a simple hand signal or get up, gather in groups, and discuss their choices.
As you begin to use them, you’ll definitely think of other ways the prompts can work in your classroom, but these are a good launching off point. At this time, we have the October Set and the November Set ready, but the other months will be finished soon, so keep your eye out for those… they’re on the way!
Until next time, happy teaching!
MORE COMMUNITY-BUILDING
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