DIGITAL RIDDLES FOR VIRTUAL LEARNING
How to Use These Digital Riddles in Your Early Elementary Classroom
Sometimes we all just need to doodle! What are digital riddles and how to use them in virtual learning? Simply put, you share clues with your kiddos and they have to draw their answer on a paper, revealing their creations to their classmates on Zoom or Google Meets. With virtual learning being king right now, your students can definitely use some fun and creativity thrown their way by incorporating clues, art, and more community into your remote platforms. When it comes to little learners, their attention span can be short, and they may not fully understand why they have to sit so long- school (as well as the rest of the world) is quite different. Keep things “normal” and more fun by using these Doodle Challenges in the following ways!
Welcome those eager students into your classroom by waking up their brains and hands with these digital riddles for virtual learning. As they sign in for the day, set up a slide so they can see a list of clues. Encourage them to doodle with their favorite color crayon or colored pencil.
When your little ones start to wiggle (can you say motion sickness?) on Zoom, bust these challenges out for a quick break. The phrase, “Ok, let’s do a doodle,” will refocus their energy so you can get back to business.
If your Zooms or Meets are lacking with participation, you can have your students pre-fold their paper into six squares. Each time you get at least 5 students to respond to a question or task, allow them to do a Doodle Challenge. This could boost attention, encourage cooperation, and even show little ones how to set simple goals to get rewarded in a positive way.
If you are having just the opposite issue, and little ones are blurting out answers, holding up toys, or dancing around in the background; you can use Doodle Challenges as a way to reinforce desired behaviors.
Let’s face it, sometimes you’re done with work quickly and have some time to kill while you are live. Always appropriate, fun, and easy to have open in a tab; Doodle Challenges make great time fillers. Just click on a slide!
Rather than yelling, “reveal,” consider mixing things up a bit to see if you can catch your students off guard. For example, after a doodle, call out, “Boys, reveal!” Or, “Reveal if your favorite food is pizza.” These quick and little changes keep Doodle Riddles fresh, fun, and kids on their feet.
Share Doodle Riddles with parents. There are so many other Doodle Riddle slides that I’ve put together- parents can even utilize them outside of the virtual classroom if they want to enhance their children’s listening skills, critical thinking and reasoning skills, or even drawing skills.
Doodle Challenges are wonderful for children who have speech needs. It encourages them to listen, process, and respond by drawing and by using words, and can be fun for speech teachers to use in small group lessons.
Doodling can be the perfect brain break, stress reliever, and artistic activity for your virtual students. Try some today to mix things up a bit, improve attention, and redirect behavior!
