Review Day Lesson Plans That Don't Turn Into Chaos

Teachers often under-plan review days because the content is already taught. But a review day without structure becomes a study hall — or worse, a behavior problem. Students need a format that makes reviewing active, social, and purposeful.

The best review activities have three features: they require retrieval (not re-reading), they include immediate feedback, and they create productive urgency through timing or competition.

Station rotation: Set up 4–5 stations around the room, each focused on a different skill or topic from the unit. Students rotate every 8–10 minutes. Each station has a task and an answer key for self-checking.

Quiz-Quiz-Trade: Students write a review question on a card, quiz a partner, swap cards, and find a new partner. In 15 minutes, every student has answered 8–10 questions.

Retrieval grids: Give students a grid with topics across the top and prompt types down the side. Students fill in cells from memory, then check against their notes. The gaps show exactly what to study.

Use LessonCraft's Tournament format to generate game-based review lessons with built-in competition structure, timing, and point systems that keep energy high.