'How did your parents meet?' is always an interesting activity for 5th-11th grades. Simple as asking each student in turn this question then asking different follow up questions - 3 or 4 questions for each student. Then just correct their verbal answers. The nice lil bonus for me is that students are usually quite interested in hearing stories about their classmates and will usually pay attention!
Another lil ripper is Strange Facts: True or False. Write up a list of say 15 statements (just on your own paper). Get each student to write True/False for each statement on a piece of paper as you read them aloud.
some examples:
US president George Washington had a dog named Drunkard. TRUE
On average, there are 333 sheets on a roll of toilet paper. TRUE
The kids always get a great laugh, and the teaching lies in the explanation of vocabulary. Going through each question for marking is the best part, with all the kids yelling TRUE! FALSE!There are numerous websites where you can find all sorts of bizarre facts, just make sure you make roughly half true and half false. I usually give a prize for the winner, snickers bars work well
