5 Minute Fillers

Working as a relief teacher, I need to have a full bag of tricks to keep the children motivated and engaged throughout the day. That's when some handy, no prep, 5 Minute Fillers come in handy!
Here are a few of my favourites that can be used across a number of year levels.

Balance Children make a circle. Number the children off “one, two, one, two…”. Holding hands, ask the “number ones” to lean in and the “number twos” to lean outwards, can you all stay up standing? Switch around.
Number Heads Two children sit on chairs in front of the whiteboard. Write a number behind each child and give them a clue (eg. Your number is between 1 and 100, or your number is a decimal number between 1 and 5). Children take it in turns to ask questions to the audience (only yes/no answers) to try and guess their number.
Roll and Skip Children sit with a whiteboard. Roll a dice to nominate the number they are counting by. Give children 1 minute to write down the correct number sequence starting from 0. How far can they go?
Quick Brainstorm Sit children in two groups. Write a topic on the board (eg. the beach) – groups take it in turns back and forth to volunteer a word to do with the topic. If a group takes too long or says a word not related, they loose that round. Play multiple rounds, changing the topic each time.
Human Shapes Children stand in their own space in the classroom. Nominate a number, letter or thing and children make themselves into that shape. Some things may require the children to work together.
Sleeping Lions Children lay on the floor in a comfortable spot. Children lay absolutely. Anyone who does move, sits up. The winner is the person who has stayed absolutely still for the longest.
Buzz Children stand in a circle. Nominate a fact family to count by and a nominated “buzz number”. A child starts saying the first number in the fact family, then the next child says the next number. Continue until the nominated buzz number has been reached. That child says buzz and sits down. Start from the first number and repeat. Play continues until one player is left.
Word Up Write a long word (nonsense or real) on the board. Give the children 3 minutes to find as many small words inside the big word as they can.
Spellcheck Detective
Write 8 words on the whiteboard. Children close/cover their eyes. While they are covered, remove one of the words and write it again with a spelling mistake. Children open their eyes and become Spellcheck Detectives to try and find the word with the spelling mistake.
Classroom Letter Hunt
Send the children around the classroom with a whiteboard or piece of scrap paper to write down 10 things that start with a particular letter. Each child can have their own letter or everyone have the same. Share.
I hope you have as much fun playing them as I do!