Wanna know why choice boards for students are so awesome? Because that’s what they are! I use choice boards whenever I want a lesson to just run by itself without me having to do anything. With a variety of activities that are fun but also challenging. And a set of tasks that give students options to choose from, and hence some autonomy over their own learning. Let me tell you why choice boards for language arts are the best choice for a lesson sometimes.
Have you ever felt just drained during a busy time in the year? Times when you felt you had no inspiration, and no energy to be the entertainer of your students? But you still wanted them to learn something? Those are times that language arts choice boards work really well. Yes, you will need to take some time beforehand to create them, but once you have, you can use them again every year. Here is what I do!
Wanna check out a free one right away? Grab this one about Christmas for free in my store!
What are choice boards?
What are choice boards, you ask? Choice boards are exercise sheets devoted to one topic, which contain options for activities to choose from for students to do.
For example, my Christmas choice board contains three reading options of different articles, two watching options where they had to watch videos, a vocabulary option in which they had to answer vocabulary word questions, an infographic analysis question, and two writing tasks.
Students receive the board along with instructions to choose a number of options from the available ones. Note that they shouldn’t have to complete all of them or the element of choice is lost. And the element of choice is what makes it fun for students. You as the teacher will tell them: complete four or five tasks from the sheet, and choose the ones you like. You can also tell students to complete the tasks that would benefit them most. For instance, if a student needs some reading practice, have them complete the reading options.
Choice boards template
Since I use choice boards throughout the year, I have created a template for a board to use for each new topic. The template always contains 9 options to choose from. It always contains
- 3 reading tasks,
- 2 watching or listening tasks,
- a vocabulary task,
- an infographic task,
- and two writing tasks.
All I have to do is find 3 texts for my students to read, 2 videos for them to watch, a Kahoot with the right vocabulary, an infographic, and then I have to come up with the questions I want them to answer.
Choice board activities
You can include any activity you like in a choice board. That’s the beauty of it. If you teach a language, you can have tasks for all language skills, or you can have all options be about the same skill, or grammar or vocabulary topic for example. It’s really whatever you want your students to get some more practice in that you should include in the board.
I’ve done choice boards about specific holidays and seasons that included all the skills, and I’ve done them about grammar points that I found various activities for to have students revise. As long as you can give students enough options to choose from, it’s all perfect. And give them enough to keep them busy, of course!
Choice boards examples
As I mentioned, I created boards for the various seasons and holidays. I have lots of ideas for choice boards, so I might create more soon. Right now, I’ve got choice board examples for:
- Christmas
- Valentine’s Day
- St. Patrick’s Day
- Easter
- Spring
- Mother’s Day
- Thanksgiving
- Winter
I’ve got these choice boards for students up in my store, if you want to give them a try. The Christmas one is free, so def grab that one! But I think you can definitely also create them from scratch yourself. It takes some time, but there are enough resources to be found online.
I hope I made clear why using choice boards in the classroom is a really good idea! Definitely give them a try, I know that you’ll love them, and your students will too!
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2 Responses
Hi ! I love this idea! I am a language teacher teaching English in Argentina, can you send me the link to purchase the ones about language ? is there anyone about summer holidays or back to school ? we start classes in March. Thanks in advance
Hi! I’m glad you love it, I think choice boards are the best! This is the link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Language-Skills-Choice-Boards-6796414 I’m working on creating more of them, including summer and fall, and back to school is a great idea too!