Find Your Partner {an Engagement Strategy}

4 comments Engagement Activities, Freebies, Student Engagement

Engagement strategies are big at my school. We are encouraged to find different structures and activities that keep our students actively engaged across the content areas. I have several go to engagement activities, but one of my favorites is Find your Partner!

What is it?
Find your partner combines movement and active thinking. Each student is given a card. They are tasked with finding the student that has the card that goes with theirs. In short, it's a matching game. The cards always include content of some sort. It's a versatile enough activity that you could use it with any subject or any topic.

How it Works
Each student has a card. Student A might have a card with a vocabulary word on it, and he/she tries to find the student (Student B), who has the definition printed on his/her card.

Or, Student A might have a card with a three-digit number printed on it, and he/she tries to find the student (Student B), who has the expanded form of that number printed on his/her card.

Kids love this engagement strategy because they are out of their seats and moving around. It's a pretty fast paced game which means once all the cards are paired up, you could play it again and again.

I typically use this activity when reviewing vocabulary and various math skills. But, again, you could use it to review just about anything. We've been working on place value, so I keep these expanded form cards on my desk. This way, we can sneak in a bit of extra review whenever we have a bit of time to spare.