Physical activity shouldn’t be limited to recess and gym class. After sitting in classrooms for hours every day, students want to get up, run around, and get their wiggles out. And teachers want a break from the everyday routine. Unruly Splats are a perfect way to combine learning with active play, allowing students to move their bodies while reinforcing coding and STEM skills. As a quick reminder, Splats are durable floor buttons that students can use to program interactive games and activities. You can check out our full breakdown of how Unruly Splats work for more information.
But Splats aren’t just for computer science classes—they work with any subject, from art to special education to ELL. Here, we’ll go through examples of how to use Unruly Splats in any classroom. We’ll hear from real teachers using Unruly Splats for all sorts of lessons, and we’ll check out ready-made lesson plans that you can implement in just a few steps. Discover the excitement of learning through interactive Unruly Splats lessons that engage students in active and educational activities.
Incorporating Splats Games into Math Classes
Clayton County, a school district in northern Georgia, was having a problem. Students were falling behind in math, and none of the usual solutions were working. Memorizing math equations, while essential to learning, wasn’t providing students with a holistic understanding of math principles. Clayton teachers needed a way to reinforce math concepts through practice and application, not just memorization. That’s where Unruly Splats came in. Using Unruly Math lessons, teachers saw big increases in both engagement and success in their classes. For the first time, students were excited for math class. One teacher, Vanese Shaw, said, “[kids] are actually enjoying doing math,” and 80% of the teachers in the program noticed students’ math skills improving.
So how can something as simple as a button prove so effective? Let’s look at a sample Unruly Splats math lesson to find out. In this lesson, students learn to round numbers to the nearest 10 or 100. First, demonstrate the principles of rounding using a number line and have students practice. Once they're comfortable rounding on their own, set up the Splats. You can find set-up instructions in our Unruly Splats review. Then, load the Rounding lesson from the app. Splat 1 will display a number between 1 and 100, and students will stomp on Splat 1, 2, or 3 to decide whether the number should stay the same, round down, or round up, respectively. If they answer correctly, the Splat will play a happy ding!, but if they make a mistake, it will play a buzzer. Students can play as a group or in teams to score points.
After playing math games like this one, the students and teachers at Clayton Schools saw the difference. A full 100% of participating teachers said they wanted to incorporate Unruly Splats into their annual curriculum, and students loved the idea. There were other benefits, too, beyond just math improvements. One teacher, Talia Franklin, said that even when students competed in teams, they helped each other. Students would cross between teams to show others how to complete certain tasks, developing their social-emotional skills. And ELL students also showed increased understanding due to the audio feedback from the games. Teacher Audrey McGhee said, “Even with a language barrier…you can see the visual, you can hear it. It opens it up to everyone to be able to understand what you need to do.”
Unruly Splats in Language Lessons
Speaking of ELL, Unruly Splats have applications for language acquisition as well. Splats games offer a unique opportunity to incorporate technology and movement into English classes, whether for students who are learning English for the first time or those with English as a native language. By using Unruly Splats, students can engage in active games that reinforce lessons on syllables, phonics, parts of speech, and more. Associating movements with language skills helps them cement the material in their minds, incorporating both kinesthetic and auditory learning. Let’s check out an example lesson to see how it works.
In this sample Unruly Splats lesson, students strengthen their understanding of phonemes by using Splats as Elkonin boxes. Teachers prepare a list of practice words that students can break down into three letters or syllables. Using the provided code on the app, teachers will use three Splats to represent each section of the word. Students will stomp on each Splat to segment the word, then slide their foot across all three Splats to hear the sounds come together. If they correctly segment and blend the word, students can then jump on an optional fourth Splat to get a point! For students at different levels of proficiency, teachers can use two Splats for shorter words or four or more Splats for longer words. And for an extra learning boost, students could spell out the word on the whiteboard after each round.
Coding Challenges with Unruly Splats
We can’t talk about Unruly Splats without talking about coding. All Unruly Splats projects involve coding in some form, though some projects focus directly on improving coding skills. The five tutorial games help students master the basics of coding with Splats, starting by learning the features of a Splat and progressing to coding their own game. Kids can make their Splats light up, make noise, keep score, and more, in any game they can dream up.
Other existing games, like the ones we mentioned above, have pre-written code from the Splats app’s vast library, which teachers can sort by subject or grade level. The app includes classic PE games like Capture the Flag (Capture the Splat), which prompt physical activity and teamwork; activities like Lucky Splats, which expands students’ cultural knowledge by adapting a game played on Lunar New Year; and student-created games like memory matching, coded by an Ohio 7th grader. However, both teachers and students can also code their own activities. Teachers might code a simple game and walk early coders through how it works. Or students can use the simple blocks in the app to program on their own.
Stomping on Splats in PE Class
Like coding, physical activity is also inherent to the Splats experience. Research shows that active play has dropped by 50% over the last 40 years, but Splats increase opportunities for active play. Although that activity can take a variety of forms—from jumping and stomping to a simple press of the Splat—it makes Splats perfect for gym class. Unruly Splats lessons can be designed to focus on all sorts of aspects of physical education, such as coordination, agility, or teamwork. Teachers can create game scenarios that mimic real-life sports or design challenges that help students improve their motor skills. Through physical computing challenges, students can simultaneously practice coding and stay active. Plus, Splats games make physical education classes a unique experience. Students can easily play dodgeball or tag after school, but they can’t often access tech like Splats outside of the classroom.
Here’s how combining Splats and PE works. In one Ohio school, a STEAM teacher and a PE teacher work together to integrate physical computing by using Splats across all subjects. Both teachers introduce the devices to fifth grade students, then send the students into other classrooms to show their peers how to play with Splats. This way, the basic coding principles that kids learn by using Splats in PE become applicable to all sorts of other lessons. Another school, in Texas, follows a similar plan. Euless School library specialist Angela Brown trains other teachers to use Splats around the building. She says, “Integrating Unruly Splats with PE, in particular, is easy,” due to the physical nature of Splats games.
Ready to put Splats into your PE classroom? One of our favorite active Unruly Splats lessons is the Relay Race. First, students exercise social-emotional skills by putting themselves into teams and working together. In three teams, students line up behind a row of Splats, then run to another row and stomp on their team’s Splat until it turns green. Then, they run back, and the next student on the team takes a turn. Whichever team finishes first wins! Teachers can also challenge teams to win as many points as possible in a certain time limit. Or they might introduce variations, such as hopping or skipping between Splats. However you customize the Relay Race for your classroom, this game is sure to get students excited about being active. And to help students practice their programming skills, you can always invite them to code their own variation of the game.
Drawing from Splatspiration in the Arts
Art and music classes become avenues for creative experimentation with Unruly Splats lessons and games. Splats can teach younger kids to identify colors through matching games. Then, they can take artistic creativity further by playing the Found Art game. In this game, students find real-life objects that match the Splats’ colors—but the colors are always changing. They’d better grab something yellow before the color changes again! When they’ve collected several objects, students are then challenged to create a found sculpture out of their items. This activity stimulates their creative brains while adding an easy layer of randomness. Using the Splats also removes some of the teacher’s mental load, since the time limits and color choices are automated through the game’s code.
The Splats are also perfect for music class, where kids can use dozens of sounds to make their own tunes. The Rainbow Keyboard activity adapts the Splats into a functioning keyboard in which each Splat plays a different note when pressed. Students can set the notes to play for different amounts of time to mimic a real song. Or they can make the notes sound like they’re being played by different instruments, such as piano or trombone. With these options, Splats can reveal a new side of music education.
Take the next step
No matter what subject you teach, there's a way to apply Unruly Splats in your lessons. And why wouldn't you, when they bring so much fun, active learning, and interdisciplinary opportunities? To get a quote, check out the Unruly Splats collection on our store or contact us for a free consultation. Plus, follow us on X (Twitter) and Instagram or sign up for our newsletter to hear updates on all our newest and most innovative STEAM tools.