Snowball
Activity Summary
Students are given the topic and have 2 minutes to write down everything they know about the topic. They then collaborate to share that information with their classmates. This is a scaffolding exercise to use previous knowledge of all the students in order to gather information for the development of new topics/concepts.
Activity Plan
1
2 mins
Each student should have a piece of paper and a pen/pencil. An empty box should be placed at the top of the room.
2
2 mins
Students are given the topic and have 2 minutes to write down everything they know about the topic.
3
2 mins
Students scrunch up their paper into ‘snowballs’ and throw them into the empty box at the front of the room. When all ‘snowballs’ are in the box, students are handed back a random ‘snowball’.
4
2 mins
Each student flattens out their assigned page and has 2 minutes to add as much more detail as they can in that time. Steps 3 and 4 can be repeated as many times as the teacher feels necessary.
5
7 mins
Students will collaboratively work together to combine all the data they have on all the pages. This can be done orally, or on the whiteboard.
Tips & Tricks
- Can be used to determine previous knowledge before starting a task.
- Can be used as a revision activity to revisit a topic.
- Stand clear of the target box, sometimes the aim of the snowballs is questionable.