Grouping Techniques
Grouping Techniques
The ProTeam curriculum frequently requires teachers to group students for activities and exercises. Many times teachers
will want to tailor groups to the particular talents and skills of the students. Other times, teachers may want a random
grouping method that discourages students from forming cliques. The methods included below can be used either way.
They're handy, educationally useful, and a lot of fun for students.
1.
Humming Festival - Students find their partners by humming the same tune. If you have twenty students, for
example, and you want four groups of five, write the name of four songs on five slips of paper each. Either have the
students draw slips at random from a hat or (if you want to tailor the groups) give students you want together the
same song. At your mark, the students all begin humming their song (no words!). They walk around and try to find
their partners. When groups begin to grow, they can hum louder and attract stragglers. It's a little noisy, but it's a lot
of fun!
2.
Animal Farm - Use the same technique described above, but substitute animal sounds for songs. If you want to have
some extra fun, include animals whose sounds aren't familiar; e.g., aardvark, anteater, llama, etc.
3.
Be a Star - Use the same technique described in #1, but substitute famous movie, TV, music, cartoon, and sports
stars. The students must do an impersonation of the star. It's fun to use cartoon characters like the Spider- Man,
Superman, Batman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Arthur, Winnie the Pooh, or more modern Saturday morning
characters (if you know any!).
4.
Parlez’ Vous Francais? - Use the same technique described in #1, but have each set of group members pretend to
speak a dif