Fun Tutoring Activities to Begin Your Session
As an elementary teacher, I am no stranger to making learning fun in my own classroom. I quickly learned in tutoring sessions I could easily transfer the fun activities my students loved in learning centers to my tutoring sessions. A typical session is 30-60 minutes. I want to maximize my time and the more fun tutoring activities I can incorporate with my tutoring clients, the more they learn.
Set the Tone for a Great Tutoring Session
The first activity of your session can set the tone for how the rest of your time will be. The longer I have tutored the more I see the attention spans of my tutoring clients getting less and less. I often enjoy playing an educational game with my client to start our session off with something fun but meaningful. A simple activity all of my elementary students have loved is a math fact fluency game. All you need is dice and a sheet of paper. If you’re working with a new student, I highly recommend playing a get to know you game. It’s important to build relationships with your tutoring clients early on just like you would in your classroom.
Math Fact Fluency game that keeps students engaged!
Fun Tutoring Activities to Begin Your Session
1. Daily Writing Prompts
Each tutoring session should feel predictable. If you’re wanting to help a student with writing stamina or writing skills, daily writing prompts give your tutoring client predictability while also allowing them to lean into creative writing. I love letting a student choose the prompt they would like to write about that day so they feel some level of choice in your tutoring session. I also loving saving their writing for the entire time you work with them and turning the writing pages into a shareable book for their parents. This serves as a way to document their progress and also create a memento.
Daily writing prompts encourage autonomy and creative writing.
2. Dry Erase Board Problem Solving
Of course we want active participation from our tutoring clients, and this is possible in person or during online tutoring sessions with a white board. On Zoom, you can use the whiteboard feature and actively have students solving problems. In person, I love keeping dry erase boards in my tutoring kit. Being able to show your thinking and explain how you arrived at an answer is a critical thinking skill all students can benefit from working on. Don’t let online lessons freak you out. Get familiar with Zoom and you’ll love how easy it is to tutor from home. You can master Zoom for online tutoring in less than 10 minutes with my YouTube video.
3. Book Clubs
Book clubs have to be one of the most underrated tutoring activities. You don’t need a tutoring pod, just one student will work to make any session enjoyable. This simple activity is easy to prep as well because all it requires is you reading the book ahead of time and preparing lesson plans that align with the learning standards and skills your client is working on. I’ve taught kindergarten, first grade and fifth grade and I believe book clubs can be done with any age. Upper elementary book clubs allow students to have open communication in a way that feels fun and safe.
Book clubs are my favorite way to build connections with tutoring clients!
4. Science Experiments
Hear me out. I know science can feel daunting and if you’ve ever taught 5th grade science, you know how much work experiments are to set up. That being said, they are so rewarding to teach and fun for your students. Science isn’t always a subject we think of tutoring in for elementary students, but don’t forget enrichment tutoring is a way to expand your tutoring business. Not all tutoring is remedial and there are parents out there looking for enrichment for their children. Creating a science camp for the summer or weekly STEM club would be so fun.
Science experiments are always a favorite!
5. End of Session Game
I am a big advocate of adding in a game at the end of your session. Of course, this is a carrot you can dangle to your tutoring client by saying something like “If we can focus for 50 minutes, we can spend the last ten minutes playing a game of your choice.” I usually have 2-3 different games and I offer them a choice of 2 so there isn’t too much decision fatigue for the child. One of my favorite games to pack with me is Uno. It’s easy to bring in your tutoring bag and as a classroom teacher, it’s a go to game for my students.
You’re likely overthinking your tutoring sessions and once you start incorporating some of the fun tutoring activities I’ve mentioned, you’ll find planning your tutoring sessions gets so much easier. Problem-solving skills are always at the forefront of my mind for tutoring sessions because I see the deficit of this skill in my own classroom on a daily basis. That’s one of the many reasons why I love incorporating fun learning games into my tutoring sessions. Parents will thank you for this as well. Tutoring allows you to see quick growth in your students because of working with them 1-1 which is something we don’t often get to do in the regular classroom. I think it’s really important to maximize your tutoring sessions but also realize there can be time for fun activities as well as brain breaks.
I’ve never had a tutoring client turn down Uno.
Growing Your Tutoring Business
You obviously want to grow a tutoring business that helps students or you wouldn’t have read this blog post. Simple activities that are fun are the way to go when it comes to building a tutoring business that’s sustainable and energizing. Once you have a few clients on your list, you’re ready for the next steps of taking your business to the next level. What would it feel like to have a repeatable tutoring structure that you use with every client, creating your own signature tutoring method that allows you to maximize your time with each student? Once you take the leap in believing in yourself you’ll notice your tutoring business is giving students and families the best results, and you have a reputation for success.
Save These Fun Tutoring Activities
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it while you're planning your tutoring sessions. Just add the pin below to your favorite Pinterest board of tutoring ideas. You’ll be able to quickly find these fun tutoring activities whenever you need them!
