Boost Classroom Collaboration with 4 Fun and Simple Ways to Pick Partners

We all know that classroom collaboration is important, but does this happen to you:

“Okay, friends, pick a partner and we will get started”. ~Chaos ensues.~

Does this sound like your classroom? I love having students work with a partner or a small group, but the drama involved sometimes puts me over the edge. Here are some fun ways for your students to pick partners without all the drama that worked for me (at least we hope!)

Classroom Collaboration

There are many benefits to students working collaboratively. Improved interpersonal communication skills, improved social skills, enhanced problem-solving abilities, students are more motivated and engaged…if they can find a partner that they work well with.

Before we ever start picking partners in our classroom we do a lot of getting-to-know-you and cooperative learning activities. Observe these types of activities and you will quickly find out who in your class works well together and who doesn’t.

Picking Partners Randomly

There are a TON of ways to help you pick your student partners randomly. One that worked really well for me was to have popsicle sticks with the students’ classroom numbers on them. Then, when it was time to pick partners, I would draw 2 sticks, and call out those students and they were partners.

There are TONS of random generators online (I am NOT affiliated with any of these sites. Please preview before using, some do have ads). These do require you to type in your class list of names. You could also use your students’ classroom numbers. Here are a few:

• Random Group Generator
• Wheel of Names
• Class Tools (lots of fun stuff here)
• Random Name Picker

Classroom Collaboration using Partner Wheels

Partner wheels are a great way to pick partners. Here is a fantastic blog post from School and the City about how she makes and uses Partner Wheels in her classroom. And, if you sign up for her newsletter, she has a free Partner Wheel Template! Win-Win-Win!

Partner Picking with a Purpose

This one is my favorite ways to encourage classroom collaboration. Partner Picking Cards! With these fun Partner Picking cards, you can get in a little academic practice as well as having your students get together with a partner. If you pass out the cards you can also be a bit sneaky and make sure that kiddos you don’t want to be partners aren’t! You could also have students randomly draw cards.

Students will each get a card, then they search for the student who has a match. Take the synonym cards for example. These are a fun way to practice synonyms. Students get a card with a picture, then they have to find a synonym card for that word. If I have the “big” card, I am looking for the person who has the “huge” card etc. There are several sets of these fun partner pairing cards you can find in my shop. These also encourage classroom collaboration by having the students talk to each other to discern if they are partners or not. Fun, simple, and effective!

Student Choice

You can have your students choose their own partners as well. I did a post a while ago (please don’t judge, it’s an old post) about picking partners in my classroom. I always had my students choose one partner for the entire day. We called them “learning partners” or “thinking partners”. Anytime that we are together on the rug they are to sit with their partner. This did cut down on having to pick partners multiple times per day.

Classroom Collaboration Post YouTube Video:

Same content, different format!

No matter what way you choose to have your students pair up, classroom collaboration is an important part of the school day! I hope you found something useful in this post! Pin the image below to save it for later!

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading my post!

Happy Teaching,