Fourth-Graders “Rock Their School” with Glow Games

Sept. 19, 2019, was “Rock Your School Day!” This is a day for teachers to amp up their student engagement and try something new and exciting in their classrooms. In my fourth-grade class, students experienced Glow Games, with the entire classroom transformed with black tarps, black lights and tons of neon, glowing decorations.

Throughout the day, students engaged in lessons and games that were all themed by Glow Games and tied to our academic content. For reading, they played “Pick It,” where they put Vaseline on their noses and had to race to the front to pick up questions that went along with the class read-aloud, “Wonder.” They had to bring the questions back to their groups without using their hands, discuss them as a group and jot down their answers on neon sticky notes.

In math, we played Tic-Tac-Glow! Using different game boards reviewing concepts from our first unit in math, students played against a partner for multiple rounds, solving math problems that glowed in the black light. The afternoon was filled with Glow Games Round Robin. Students rotated through four different content-based stations where they played hands-on games while answering questions, solving problems and thinking critically.

At the end of the day, we all reflected on how the day went. Responses ranged from “Best day I’ve ever had at school!” to “Awesome and educational!” to “I was so surprised and had so much fun!” 

The day was a huge success and definitely one of my favorite days I’ve had as a teacher! My students were so appreciative, so engaged and had so much fun! I can’t wait to incorporate more days like this into this school year.