This is a "I have 10 minutes to kill" review lesson plan that engages kids, helps them learn, and keeps them quiet.

It was my first year teaching and we finished reading a Ray Bradbury short story 10 minutes before the end of school. I thought it would be a great time to relax. My students thought it would be a great time to talk, shout, stand on desks, throw pencils in the ceiling, light books on fire, smoke cigarettes, and plot the destruction of the school.

The bell rang. I lay in the fetal position under my desk, sobbing. I needed to create a fun language arts review lesson plan, perhaps a grammar review lesson plan, or a literature review lesson plan that took up the last ten minutes of class, kept students quiet, and maybe even taught them something.

Here's what I came up with.

This lesson plan can be used for language arts review, grammar review, vocabulary review, and pretty much anything review. As far as covering the Common Core Standards, it depends on what you're reviewing, but here are some basics.

1. L.9-10.1  Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
2. L.9-10.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9-10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies. Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word's position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
3. L.9-10.6 Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

This preparation can be used for a literature review lesson plan, a grammar review lesson plan, or a vocabulary review lesson plan. This activity is great at the end of class when you have 10 minutes left, at the beginning of class to get things started, or the middle of class to break up the monotony. It's a good alternative to the standard busy work plans we all know and love.

1. Choose what it is you want to review. For this activity, we'll use grammar and mechanics. I would suggest preparing a review for vocabulary, literature, or anything else you've taught or plan on teaching. By the way, here's a great parts of speech review.
   
2. On note cards write down grammar terms you want to review: noun, verb, adjective, comma, semicolon, etc.
3. On another set of note cards write down the definition of the grammar terms you want to review: person, place, or thing, action word, etc.
4. Make enough cards so that each student has 1-2 cards.

Now that you've prepared the cards, you're ready to begin. Keep the cards handy for whenever you need a good 10-15 minute review.

1. Place at least one card--face down--on each student's desk. They may not pick up the card until instructed to do so.
2. Instruct students that they are being timed. They must find the match to their card as quickly as possible.
3. They may not talk. I repeat: They may not talk.
4. As soon as the match is found, the matcher must hand the cards to the teacher to make sure they're correct.
5. As soon as all cards are returned, correctly matched, the round is over.
6. Write the time on the board and talk trash about how much faster the other classes are, even if they're not.
7. Give them a second chance...or a third chance.
8. For really good classes, add a third matching card. For example, you could have noun on one card, person, place, or thing on another card, and common, proper, concrete, abstract on another.

Trick students into learning with these challenge lesson plans.

• Context Clues Challenge
• Paragraph Challenge
  
• Reading Challenge