The Kahoot Heard ‘Round the Country

Have you heard of Kahoot? If not, you MUST check it out! It is a game-based classroom response system. It is basically a way for teachers to ask questions to their students to learn more about their knowledge. This can be done for an assessment, or for fun. I knew my students would love it when our third grade teacher told me that her students started shouting “One more test! One more test!” after they played for the first time. We tried it in our room and were hooked right away.


Now on to the good stuff…


A few weeks ago I noticed a Google doc that was tweeted about using #1stchat. I frequently search the hashtag to find great ideas from other first grade teachers. We have done ways to connect in the past, so I clicked on it and fill out my info. The teachers on the doc collaborated on ideas for World Read Aloud Day. There were ideas of Skyping for reader’s theaters, sharing books on Padlet, and working on rhyming words on a shared doc. The idea that everyone seemed the most excited about was playing a Dr. Seuss Kahoot game though!


There were several emails back and forth about how we would set it up. We set a time and made sure that we were in each other’s circles on Google Plus because we were going to connect via Google Hangout. One teacher was going to share the Kahoot game and the rest of the classes were going to log in with the same game pin. It seemed crazy, but we thought it just might work.


When the time came, I told my class that there was a strong possibility that we wouldn’t end up playing. I told them that if we did all get on and into the Hangout, we could be making history! When we got our call to join the hangout, it was thrilling! Classes kept popping on, it was so fun to see. 


All together there were nine first grade classes from seven different states playing!

Once we were all into the Hangout and introduced ourselves, we began playing the game. I decided to just play with our computer instead of having all of my students play along individually. Some teachers did it differently where their students had their own devices. We had a great time playing and ended up in second place!

After the game was over we all started saying goodbye and thank you. My class was having so much fun, I was hesitant to “hang up.” Immediately after we finished they began asking when we could do it again. I am positive there will be many more Kahoot collaborations in our future!