A No-Fail Monday Activity

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We know Monday motivation can be a difficult thing after a weekend of fun and adventure and when the next weekend seems so far away, which is why we thought we’d let you in to one of our favourite activities to whip out on a Monday, an activity which is sure to work no matter what class you have and no matter how low energy levels are.

If you think about it, what’s the one thing we all do when we get to work on the Monday (besides making a really big cup of tea)?

We ask about the weekend, of course! So why not take advantage of that universal love of weekends and get your students talking about a topic that never gets old.

  • Preparation: 
    • Collate some pictures which describe your weekend. Include happy memories, as well as anything negative that happened to you – we’re not talking huge disasters, but any small, irritating thing that may have happened. They don’t have to be your pictures but if you have any from your social media that’s a bonus. For example, a beach and a book; a cup of spilt coffee; friends at the pub; rain
  • Procedure:
    • Draw a J and a L on the board.
    • Tell the students that there were some high points during your weekend but also some low points. Ask them to discuss in pairs what they think they might be. This could really be anything (the crazier, the better) but if they know you they may be able to take some intelligent guesses.
    • Let them share their guesses, hinting at who is close. When everyone has had a say, show them the pictures and explain your weekend, highlighting your ups and your downs.
    • Now it’s your students’ turns. Give them a few minutes to draw pictures which represent the highs and lows of their weekends. In pairs, they repeat the activity as they did with you, guessing first and then looking at the pictures to confirm or deny their guesses. While showing the pictures, the students explain their weekends to their partners
    • When everyone has finished, ask in open class who had the best highlight and the lowest point in the weekend to end the activity.

By talking about high points and low points and not just asking “What did you do this weekend?”, students are forced to evaluate their weekend, ranking their activities from best to worst. Doing this will help them realise how much they did and will give them things to talk about.

A few notes on logistics: Make sure you are not pairing students who have spent the weekend together, because this would make the guesses pointless. Also, you probably couldn’t do this activity every Monday but you could definitely do a variation of it every couple of weeks. Finally, don’t accept “But teacher, I did nothing”. They could not have sat still in silence for 48 hours, which means they must’ve done something – even if it was playing computer games or going to the grocery store.

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