This year , I decided to have some April Fool’s Day fun in class !I celebrated April Fools’ Day with several well chosen tricks, that kept my students giggling ,all day long.
I looked for ideas on line and I tried the ones below, with huge success, with 4 different classes. ( 2nd-6th graders)
With my 2nd graders, whom I teach Art, I just did the following ( which reaaaly worked!): I told them that we were all going on a field trip to someplace fun, at the end of the day. I asked them to use their imagination and DRAW that place and finally see if they were right! I promised lollipops, to the ones who might guess right! Their drawings were fantastic! Most of them drew the nearby park or the nearest burger house – When it got to be almost the end of the day,I told them that the ‘fun’ place was actually their… homes! Zing!
With my 3rd graders, I decided to begin the lesson of the day, with my mouth moving but, no sound coming out !! That REALLY freaked them out!! The funniest thing was that, most of them could actually read my lips and respond to what I asked them to do or say, naturally!!
With my 4th graders, I decided to write a special ” Truths and Lies about my English Teacher ” worksheet and have them work in groups, to figure out how much information was true and suggest alternatives for points which they considered as …lies!
With my 5th and 6th graders, I used two hilarious activities I had found on www.busyteacher.org !
A grammar-of-the-day worksheet went out to the class, and in minutes, we were all dumbfounded. The questions were incomprehensible, written in complete gibberish. I went along with the joke. They had 20 minutes to finish it, and it was going to be worth a substantial amount of points. The different tasks, were also fun!
eg Draw and write about your Teacher’s life in the future or write about your next week’s plans on the Moon!
I don’t remember how long the gag lasted exactly, but I do remember all of them sitting there, mouths agape, wondering if the assignment was serious. Then, once they had all thrown their hands up, I let them in on the joke: “April Fool’s!”
The second worksheet, was a TEST! The test was worth…100 points! It was a test to see how well they could follow instructions! If they could not finish the test in time, they would lose ..300 points! They only had ..10 minutes to finish the Test! That freaked them out!
Some task examples: Write your name backwards 5 times, Write the names of ten colors, Tap the person sitting closest to you 5 times on the right shoulder etc
If I had older students, I would definitely use these amazing British Council lesson plans !
April Fool’s Day is the perfect time to play some light-hearted pranks on our friends, family, and co-workers; and if you’re a teacher, pulling an unexpected fast one on your students can be entertaining — and memorable — for everyone. So if you’re hoping to bring a humor lesson into the classroom, this is the right day to do it! Enjoy! We did!
HERE ARE A FEW OF THE ACTIVITIES SUGGESTED ABOVE, IDEAL FOR ONLINE TEACHING/LEARNING!
ELT inspired 