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Don’t let practicing sight words or math facts be boring! Bump up the engagement with this Fist Bump review activity.
To Memorize or Not to Memorize?
I’m not a fan of rote memorization. I don’t believe in memorizing facts and dates for the sole purpose of regurgitating them on a test and then forgetting them forever. But there are some things that are difficult to learn because they don’t follow the “rules.” Sight words and math facts are just two examples. They are so important for our kiddos to learn – but man can they be tough. In these cases, memorization is necessary – but it doesn’t have to be boring.
Repeated exposure is the key to memorization. German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus found that after learning something new, we forget 30% of it within 20 minutes! 40 minutes later (for a total of one hour) and we’ve forgotten 50% of what we learned. By the next day, 70% is forgotten. Now I don’t know about you, but that makes our jobs as teachers a little tougher! How on earth are we supposed to help our students learn 100% of the year’s objectives if everyday they lose 70%? Sounds like one step forwards, two steps backwards to me. But’t don’t despair . . .
Ebbinghaus also found that repeated exposure to information helps with long-term retention. Whether it is repeatedly seeing, saying or writing something down, its that repetition that really helps. He also found that multiple shorter spans of repetition are more effective than one long “learning session.” Now that is something I can work with – short spurts of learning and reviewing.
Engaging Review Activities
If the goal is short spurts of repetition then that is what I need to weave into my days. It’s time to change our thinking focus from full-on lessons and start structuring our time in way that best helps our students learn and remember. That’s why I created the Fist Bump review activity. I needed a fast way for my students to practice their sight words over and over again.
While repetition is key – it doesn’t have to be all in one day. So, why not expose our students over and over again to these hard to learn concepts through fun games and activities. It’s time to make memorizing engaging.
Bump up the Engagement
The First Bump review activity is a quick way to review sight words, math facts and so much more! I don’t know about you, but my students love fist bumping. So I decided to harness that and use it for learning.
The Fist Bump Review Activity is super easy to prepare and use in the classroom. It’s also really versatile too! All you have to do is print out the fists you want to use. Use one by your classroom door to use as and entry and exit pass. Set-up entry and exit tickets around the school where your class goes (the cafeteria, the playground door, the library, the computer lab). Who knows you just might help other students and classes work on their skills too!
Here’s an example of an “exit ticket” activity sent to me by Keepin’ Up with Kinders.
Want more than just and entry / exit ticket? Print multiples to put around the room for a center activity. In fact, this could become a consistent, year-long center activity. Leave the fists up all year but just change the target word, math fact or skill. Still not sure? How about creating a class Fist Bump Book! Add it to your classroom library and let students read it and fist bump their way through reading time. There are so many ways you could use the fist bump activity. Do what works best for your classroom, your schedule and your students!
Fist Bump Review Activity
You can find the Fist Bump Review Activity in my Kinderhearted Classroom Shop and on Teachers Pay Teachers. In this set you will receive the following Fist Bump Review Activities:
- Fist Bump Sight Words
- Fist Bump Beginning Sounds
- Fist Bump Add
- Fist Bump Subtract
- Fist Bump Multiply
- Fist Bump Divide
AND . . . you get a set that is 100% completely EDITABLE! What does that mean, that means that you can customize this activity for an word list, any skill set, or any concept that you need in your classroom.
If you’d like to see more pictures and videos of this review activity in use, make sure to jump over to Instagram! There you will see many pictures from other teachers showing how they are using the Fist Bump Review Activity in their classroom!