With Labor Day weekend behind us, we may feel a twinge of longing for the summer that has passed. If we’re feeling the pull back to carefree summer, chances are – our students are feeling the same way! Here is a fun way to bring a little summer into your classroom, while integrating an effective review technique. All you need is a beach ball (quick, they’re on sale right now!) and a permanent marker.

1. Brainstorm a list of common review questions you might ask in your classroom. Here are some examples: What happened? What is the main idea? How would you explain this concept to a younger student? Summarize this into 3 key words.
2. Now brainstorm a list of sentence stems that would cause a student to recall important information, or clarify questions. Here are some examples: The most important point from today’s lesson was…. I would like more clarification on …. I feel most comfortable with the concept about….Let’s review one more time the section about….
3. Once you have a good list of review questions and sentence stems, blow up your beach ball. Use you permanent marker to write these questions and stems randomly around the ball.

Introduce the beach ball review to your students. When it is time for an energizer, or at the end of class, pull out the ball, and toss to a student. The student is to respond to the question or stem that is closest to their pointer finger on their right hand. After responding, the student can toss the ball to another student. For a variation, have students stand in a circle to catch the ball.

You can create multiple beach ball review tools for different units, or you can create one general review ball which can be used throughout the year. Students will enjoy this fun twist to learning!