When it comes to planning fun and interesting activities for the high school classroom, it is important to understand the cognitive and social development of teen-agers and develop activities that will both stimulate their thinking and entice their creativity.
Debate
An excellent activity for the high school social studies class is a class debate. This can be done by splitting the class into four teams (or two teams if it's a small class, and six teams if it's a large one). Assign two of the teams a topic to debate. Which side of the issue each team is on can be determined by a coin toss. The teams will have a week to prepare their case and then argue it in front of the classroom, which will act as judge and finally pass the verdict and announce the winner. The following week, the next two teams argue their issue. This activity is versatile and customizable to the needs of the students and the resources of the teacher. The topics of debate can be contemporary issues from the headlines or historical issues covered in the class' textbooks.
Play
A good activity for an English literature class is to put on a play. This activity can become quite elaborate, but it does not need to be a schoolwide production. Instead, the classroom can put on a private play, and the teacher can tape it and distribute videos to the students so that they can share them with their families and friends, making it a fairly low-cost production. Putting on a play after reading a book of the story or subject will add more dimension and allow the students to further explore the book's themes and the characters.
Additional Ideas
Some other ideas that can be attempted in a high school classroom include putting on a quiz spractice facts, building robots to study engineering and mathematics, and putting together a time capsule for future generations to discover. Whatever activity you choose, remember to approach it with creativity, flexibility and the needs of your students in mind.
Considerations
Because high school is such an academically significant period in a student's life, these activities also need to have educational value and help the teacher reach the year's curricular goals. Finally, the activity must be geared toward the primary subject of instruction. Math teachers should organize their class in an activity that will facilitate understanding of pre-calculus mathematics, while social studies teachers should plan activities that correspond to the unit they are covering in class.
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