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360 FREE Warmers and Fillers

Dinner Party At the end of class, have students work together to plan a dinner party of the characters or real people that appeared in their reading that day. Who would they invite? Why? Who should sit next to ...

Dream House After introducing the vocabulary of housing and furniture, put students into groups to design their dream houses. One person can “draft” the plan while the whole group contributes to t ...

Create a Tableau After reading a story, have students create a “tableau” from that story. A tableau is a “living picture” and is silent. It was a popular party game in Victorian days. Stude ...

Discuss an Idiom A good end-of-class filler is to further discuss an idiom that came up that day: its meaning and origin. For example, an idiom that might come up in class is “under the table,” to disc ...

Invented Dialogues Warmer After teaching students how to quote, have students work in pairs to create imaginary conversations by selecting quotes from their text and then mixing them up with new dialogue they write themsel ...

Concept Map Sticky Notes After introducing a new topic, have students write keywords related to the topic onto sticky notes and organize them in a flow chart on a large poster board. For large classes, students can be bro ...

Bumper Stickers In the last part of class, have students create “bumper stickers” around a course concept. First explain what a bumper sticker is (a short, usually clever slogan placed on the back, o ...

Book Group Have students get into small groups at the end of class to discuss that session’s reading. Each group member should offer an opinion on the reading with support for that opinion. One member ...

Rewrite the Ending to a Story or Movie After students read a well-known story or watch a famous movie, have them rewrite the ending. For example, if they watch the movie West Side Story, have them consider the possibilities if the her ...

Review Sentence Types Begin a lesson the day students bring in essays by reviewing the three basic sentence types in English: simple, compound, and complex.   A simple sentence is a subject, verb, and complete i ...

Relate Material to a Well-Known Cultural Icon Teachers often bring in elements of popular cultures to lectures for students to relate to. It can work even better if the material is a cultural icon. Not everyone knows who Lady Gaga is, especia ...

Closer: Reading and Using Editing Marks After returning student compositions, take some time to review the marks on student papers that they often ignore. “How many students see ‘R’ on their papers?” the teacher ...

Argue for a New Car When introducing the concept of argumentation to students, use the example of arguing to a family member for a new car. The thesis/premise begins the argument: We need a new car. Students then ne ...