20 teaching ideas for starter activities

Last updated: 15/11/2023
Contributor: Teachit team
20 teaching ideas for starter activities
Main Subject
Key stage
Category
History
Resource type
Teaching ideas

20 creative and practical lesson starter ideas for key stage 3, GCSE and A-level learners. These fun starter activities include whole-class warm-ups, group games and ways to recap teaching from last lesson.

Below are five teaching ideas from the list to get you started. Download the Word doc or PDF for 15 more.

Example starter activities from the resource: 

Catchphrase (sort of). Display an image on the board (relating to the topic of study) but cover it up. Every time a student answers a question then show a little bit more of the image. The first person to identify the image wins!

Guess who? Put students into pairs and hand out a wad of sticky notes to each pair. They write a word or statement relating to the lesson and put it on their partner’s head. Their partner then has to guess what or who they are!

Explain statements. Put students into groups of three and number them one to three. Put three numbered statements up on to the whiteboard and ask students to explain the corresponding statement to their group.

Nine box squares. Write nine key words, used the previous lesson, in boxes on the board. Challenge students to make a (historically accurate) sentence of at least three words, or a short paragraph using them all.

Play key word bingo! Ask students to select six words from a list of key words on the board to create a bingo grid. Read out the definitions to students. As they identify them, they tick off their bingo cards. The first student to get a full house wins.

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30/01/2021

5

01/05/2020

5

09/09/2019

Indeed useful for teachers

zia ahmad

02/05/2017

5

30/01/2021

5

01/05/2020

5

09/09/2019

Indeed useful for teachers

zia ahmad

02/05/2017

5

5