How to Use Would You Rather Questions for Kids to Spark Classroom Discussions

Would you rather …  is a fun and thought-provoking game that children have been playing for generations, but of you haven’t thought to use this old standby in the classroom, you may be missing out! Our teacher team has been pulling Would You Rather questions out for the kids in their classrooms from back-to-school time all the way through the end of the school year for a variety of activities.

The teachers on the Teach Starter team dug into all of our favorite ways to use the popular game of preferences in the classroom. Read on for ideas, plus some truly fun “Would You Rather” questions that will get your students thinking and engaging in thoughtful discussions in the classroom and ideas for crafting your own would you rather questions for kids!

How Do You Play Would You Rather in the Classroom?

Maybe you’re already familiar with Would You Rather — after all, many a child has whiled away a summer vacation with siblings or cousins musing over whether they’d rather eat a sandwich full of bugs or a sandwich full of slugs and countless more disgusting queries.

When it comes to playing the popular kids’ game in the educational setting, the questions don’t have to be disgusting — although they can be — but they make for interesting conversations in your morning meeting and a lot more. Here are just a few ways our teacher team likes to play!

Getting to Know You Activity

From the relatively tame “Would you rather do schoolwork in a group or by yourself?” to the funny “Would you rather only be able to crawl or only be able to walk sideways like a crab?” help students get to know their new classmates with a peek inside each other’s heads during the first few weeks of school.

Ask your students a Would You Rather question, and allow them to turn to their elbow buddy to discuss their answer. Are you looping this year or teaching in a smaller school where your students already know each other quite well?

This can still be a great first day of school activity: Instead, have students write down their answers and then have their elbow partner guess which one they’ve picked!?

Download a set of back-to-school-themed Would You Rather game cards!

Field Trip Boredom Buster

Planning a field trip with your class and know you are all in for a long, long bust trip. Cultivate some positive energy to ward off all the “are we there yet” queries with a stash of good Would You Rather questions.

We like to print out cards to hand out to students to play with the students in their bus seat to maintain a reasonable bus volume (the driver will thank you too!).

Opinion Writing Prompts

No surprise here: Being presented with a question that asks your opinion is a great opportunity for students to practice their persuasive powers. Questions that pose the chance to make a choice between two things make great opinion writing prompts.

Students can be charged with creating a quick persuasive speech, having a class debate, or even writing an opinionated essay as a response to one of the questions.

Some fun questions to use to really get them charged up and excited to write include:

• Would you rather eat toenail clippings or ear wax?
• Would you rather have 5 sisters or 5 brothers?
• Would you rather have hooks for hands or claws for feet?
• Would you rather never be allowed to wash your hair again or never brush your teeth ever again?
• Would you rather travel into the past or travel into the future?

Drawing Activity

Some of the fun questions on these printable Would You Rather question cards would make amazing drawing prompts. Ask the questions, but rather than responding vocally, direct your students to draw their answers. For a bit of deeper thinking, why not have them annotate their pictures?

Data Analysis

Would You Rather questions make the perfect stimulus for basic graphing and data work. Create a class survey on one question, and have students tally how many people voted one way versus the other using their understanding of graphs and charts.

Morning Brain Boost

If you’re finding that there’s too much noise outside of your classroom before the bell, why not add a Would You Rather question to your whiteboard every morning? Get your students’ brains fired up before they tackle the day. You can discuss their answers during morning meeting, or students can write about it in their morning journals.

You can also make this a regular event in your classroom calendar with Would You Rather Wednesdays.

Download 180 Days of Morning Meeting Questions!

Narrative Writing Kick-Starters

Sometimes the best stories are the ones that have grown from a tiny seed planted in a child’s mind.

Plant those seeds with an either/or question to begin a Narrative Writing lesson. See what truly imaginative and creative story ideas sprout from the simple ideas these questions present.

Brain Break

Use the Would You Rather questions to encourage your students to get up and move for a quick — and active — brain break during the long school day.

Here are some ideas:

1. Read a question to your class. Ask them to mime the answer they would choose.
2. Ask a student to draw a card from the pile and try to act out both options. Get the rest of the class to guess which card they chose!

A Lesson On Comparisons

When answering these questions, it may be easy for your students to jump to their answers very quickly without much thought. And that’s fine! Getting them to draw out their answers and explain themselves will help them develop those analytical skills. That’s where a graphic organizer can come in handy!

Another activity to prompt your students into thinking more deeply about their answers is to complete a compare and contrast activity. You might do this in a number of ways:

• Have a class discussion on the similarities and differences between each answer
• A Venn Diagram is a great visual activity to help your class see the ways in which the possible answers are similar and different.
• Draw up a pros and cons comparison using a T-Chart. Complete one for each answer and then compare which one has the most pros!

Include in a Class Time Capsule

Here’s a fun way to use this game at the beginning of the school year with a return visit at the end of the year! Create a time capsule at the start of the school year, and challenge students to answer a Would You Rather question to include. At the end of the year, they can pull it out and see if their opinion has changed!

How to Write Good Would You Rather Questions

Struggling to write good “would you rather” questions that engage your class? Don’t overthink it! The best options for this game are:

1. Fun or funny — You don’t need to get too serious to have a truly good question for the game.
2. Different but seemingly equal — Sticking with options that are very close in nature can help you write questions more easily
3. A challenge to choose between — You want to provoke students’ critical thinking skills, after all.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The teachers on our team have written plenty of fun would you rather questions to spark your students’ excitement! Explore some of our teacher team’s favorite Would You Rather games for kids, and pick the one that’s right for your class!

• Winter Would You Rather
• Summer Would You Rather
• 100th Day of School Would You Rather
• Read Across American Would You Rather Game