Have you ever played Kahoot? If not, have you ever HEARD of Kahoot? If Kahoot is completely new to you, then you’re in for a treat! Kahoot is a FREE, customizable, quiz game app for kids and other fun loving people. I have used this very successfully (and habitually!) in first and second grade as a fun whole class activity, and I also know of teachers that have used it in their kindergarten classrooms, but check out how they have to login below. AND… here’s the thing: in order to play, you must have access to one-to-one devices, such as tablets with online access or chromebooks. Maybe if you have a cooperative class, you could get by with 1:2 devices or somewhere in between. In this case, two kids would share one device and take turns pressing the buttons. 
In order to prepare, the teacher first either creates or finds a Kahoot quiz that matches what the children need to learn or review. This is usually done in advance. Here’s the link to a YouTube tutorial on how to create a Kahoot game!
To login: Each child or team must be able to put in a seven digit game pin, or a four digit shape/color code that seems to change every fifteen seconds or so! But that has rarely been a problem for my kids. After that, they get to type in a screen name, and that’s my kids’ favorite part! They make up silly ones!
On the screen, it tells me how many people have joined the game. I sometimes have to just begin the game even though I can see that not everyone has “joined the game yet.” Otherwise, they are just having too much fun changing their screennames over and over!
To start the game, a question comes up on the screen. I usually read it aloud. Then two to four answers come up in different colored boxes. The children simply press the color on the screen of their device that corresponds to the correct answer.
The Kahoot game rewards the most points to the kids that answer correctly FIRST, so this is a game of speed. There might be a setting that will take care of that if your kids don’t like that.
After each round, the top scorers go up on the screen- or at least their “screen names” do! The children LOVE this! What I really like is that the children who are really trying and paying attention are rewarded. Love that!
Now what did I do with Kahoot along with the worksheets?
What I did was create the Kahoot quiz by using the questions on a given worksheet that contained content that I wanted my students to learn. I started with those questions and then added a few of my own so that I had a good “guided practice” portion of the lesson I was giving. Then I would give lessons such as I describe below.
A Typical Kahoot Lesson on any topic:
1. To give the lesson, start with a short directed lesson to introduce the concept and do some initial checking for understanding.
2. Begin the Kahoot game and check to see how many students are answering correctly. Explain the concept again another way.
3. Play another round, checking again for understanding. Have a few children that understand explain how they got the answers to the class.
4. Keep playing until most kids understand. Ask individual children what they don’t understand. (When the answer is revealed, their screens turn red! Others’ turn green.)
Independent Practice:
Pass out the worksheet, reminding the children that they just did many of these problems in that Kahoot game, and if they have questions they can also think back to the game.
My kids in second grade LOVE this game, as did my first graders last year! And not only is it FREE to play, but the app is also FREE to download!! And now here’s one more thing that’s even better: I’ve rounded up some good, and (free) worksheets based on what my kids needed to learn, and built some Kahoot games to reinforce what was on those worksheets. And since they are all on miscellaneous topics, I see no reason to charge a penny for a single one. They really aren’t anything special. And keep in mind, I made these for my current SECOND graders… so if you don’t teach any of these topics, I’m sorry, hang on tight! Just one more week of teaching second grade, and I’m headed for TK! Read about it here!
But to my friends that teach Kindergarten or Pre-K, I would propose to you that you may wish to reinforce some basic topics using Kahoot if you have access to one-to-one (or nearly) now and then! Kahoot games are SUPER quick and easy to make. Besides that, there are TONS of them that are already free to use online that were made by teachers like you and me. They have a search engine that quickly pulls up quizzes on any given topic. And if you don’t like a specific question or answer, all you have to do is make a copy of it and resave it as your own, giving credit to the originator. Then you make your changes and upload again if you like. You can always choose to keep a Kahoot either private or public.
Here is a list of all of the Kahoots that I either made, modified, or found, along with the worksheets that I have either created or found. All of them are free, to the best of my knowledge!
1. Parts of Speech
Parts of Speech Kahoot Game
Parts of Speech Worksheet
2. Possessive or Plural Apostrophes Kahoot
Possessive or Plural Apostrophes Kahoot Game
Possessive or Plural Apostrophes Worksheet
3. Context Clues Kahoot
Context Clues Kahoot Game
Context Clues Worksheet 1
Context Clues Worksheet 2
4. Author’s Purpose
Author’s Purpose Kahoot Game
Author’s Purpose Worksheet
5. Alphabetical Order (to the second letter)
Alphabetical Order (to the second letter) Kahoot Game
Alphabetical Order (to the second letter) Workhseet
6. Synonym Review
Synonym Review Kahoot Game
Synonym Review Worksheet
7. Suffix Review
Suffix Review Kahoot Game
Suffix Review Worksheet
Here are some more Kahoot games, but they do not have worksheets.
1. Cause & Effect
2. Homophone Review
3. Prefixes Review
4. Plural Spellings Review (ies vs. ys)
Plural Spellings Review (ies vs. ys) Kahoot Game
5. Shades of Meaning
6. Formal vs. Informal English
Formal vs. Informal English Kahoot Game
7. Fact vs. Opinion
8. Which Sense?
9. Estimating Lengths in Meters and Centimeters
Lengths in Meters and Centimeters Kahoot Game
I found this YouTube video of a CUTE first grade class playing in groups of two or three. Check it out if you’d like a visual of how the games work!
Enjoy!!! 
– Heidi
P.S. You know I have to ask…. 
Have you seen our newly animated Sight Words DVDs???
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