Dead Air

We've all had it happen.
The lesson that SHOULD have taken you 30 minutes to teach only took 20. You have 10 minutes to kill before you line your little darlings up to march them to specials (and then there is a Diet Coke calling your name from the teachers lounge!)
But you can't let them sit there and twiddle their thumbs for 10 minutes....you can't let them ' talk amongst themselves' because then in 3 seconds it will sound like a riot is being held in your room.
SO, what do you do?? You have to fill, what is known in the radio world as "Dead Air", and although we as teachers don't get fined for it like radio stations do, the consequences can be just as painful if we don't come up with something creative to fill it.

I don't know about you, but when I was in school "Dead Air" was filled with impromptu games of " 7 Up" and "Hangman". While these were 'fun' they were not necessarily educational, and with the pressures to cram every bit of information possible into their brains, help students succeed, I like to fill every minute with something USEFUL.

I found these VERY useful! They are from Jodi at Fun in First. (A freebie from her!!) and my class LOVED them last year!

Here are some other suggestions I've tried:

* A spelling game on the whiteboard (not as smart as your board) from Spelling City.com

* Read an interactive book from Tumblebooks-

*Try a riddle from this website (time fillers for subs)-

  *Online Mad Libs from Wacky Web Tales- this was a FAVORITE of my class last year and a wonderful parts of speech review!!! 

* An activity from BrainPop Jr. - another big favorite of my class last year!

I'm sure I'll put all of these to good use this year as well! (And probably add to them!) So, what kinds of things do YOU do to fill in dead air time???