Scoot: Increase Fun and Engagement in the Classroom

Are your students sitting around with droopy eyes, barely holding their heads above their desks?  Are you tired of hearing yourself talk?  Are you looking for a way to work more movement into your lessons?

Scoot is the activity you are looking for!

Scoot is a great game to play in the classroom.  What is Scoot you ask?  Scoot is a game that can be played with any subject or standard.  The basic routine is simply to teach and you can use ANY content you want.  You set up the game by picking a subject or standard and making (or buying) task cards to use.

OMG, I was amazed at how much my kids loved it when we played earlier this year.  They were so engaged and so focused!  I'm guessing the movement part is really helping them focus.

I am going to use my Spring Short Vowel Word Sort to show you how to play Scoot.  I have played this game with multiple grade levels in various situations and each group has loved it!

Here is the set so SCOOT on over and get it!

To play Scoot, you place a card at each spot.  Each card has a problem to be solved, a word to write or a task to complete.  Students rotate around the places, recording their answers on the recording sheet. Students start at their seats and answer the question, solve the problem or follow the direction at their seats.  On your signal, students stand and move to the next seat.  They look at the card at that seat and answer the question, solve the problem or follow the direction.  I like to use the commands "Start (Followed by work time), Stop, Stand, SCOOT (students move to the right), Sit" and repeat. 

We all end up giggling with my one-word commands!

For my Kindergartners, we mostly play around their tables and sometimes they go to another table and rotate around that one! My Second Graders loved when I put the cards up on the wall around the classroom

For this Short Vowel Word Sort, I created real and nonsense CVC words and put them on eggs.  Students were given a sheet with 2 columns, one for real words and one for nonsense words.  Students rotated around their table.  They read each word on the egg, decided if it was a real word or a nonsense word, and wrote it in the correct column.

Each table has 5 or 6 seats.  Students rotated around 3 tables this day, so they all practiced reading 15-18 CVC words!  I had some kids who are still struggling readers, so my assistant and I stuck near them and helped them sound out the words.

When you first introduce the game, it is important to practice the movement from seat to seat.  First I showed one table how to move with my directions (sit... start... stop... stand... scoot) and then they practiced and modeled for the whole class.  Then the whole class practiced moving around their table.  It took a few rotations for all the kids to get it.  Typical mistakes from students were moving in the wrong direction and moving too many seats.  Students generally got it after a complete rotation around their table.

I also have a FREEBIE for you.  This Scoot: A How to Play Guide will help you get your kids moving in the right direction.  It includes directions and arrow cards to show your students which direction to move.



The game I used in these images is great for Kindergarten in the Spring.  These resources from my store will work just as well.