This has always been a bit of a challenge for teachers, because sometimes a game with three players just doesn’t work! OR as the teacher, you need to be assisting pairs, rather than being in a pair yourself! Having an odd number of students can be a pain, but it’s a fact of #teacherlife, ammirite???

My puppet Nigel! I couldn’t help but capture this moment. I gave Nigel to one of my students to be their ‘partner’ for a Maths warm up game. You should have seen the look on their face! It was a mixture of confusion and sheer delight as my students know they are not allowed to touch Nigel without my permission. The rest of the students looked at them like they were the luckiest kid in the class!

We had an uneven amount of students in the grade and I needed to work with another group, so Nigel was the perfect fill in for the game.

 

This solution works wonders and is guaranteed to stop any tears due to an uneven number of students. You can use any sort of stuffed toy like a teddy bear or puppet. The student will need to roll the dice for both themselves and their partner.

 

Do you have any other solutions to have an odd amount of students in the classroom? I’m sure there are some other wonderful ideas out there! I’d love for you to comment below and share with the MJLL community!