I love using digital drag and drop activities in my classroom. A drag and drop activity has questions for students to answer by dragging the correct answer on a card that is provided. They keep students engaged and are easy to grade. In this blog, I am going to show you how to create your own drag and drop activities using Google Slides.
Step 1 – Choose the topic for your drag and drop activity.
Think about what content you want your students to work on when using this drag and drop activity. Make sure it is a topic that will allow students to drag an answer to a problem.
Step 2 – How do you want your drag and drop activity to look?
In this step, you need to think about how you want your drag and drop activity to look. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want. One option is to put a worksheet you already have on a Google Slide and create answers on cards to drag over to the questions. You also can create your own questions on a Google Slide and make specific places for students to drag their cards.
Step 3 – Create your Google Slide with your questions.
Open a blank Google Slide and decide how you want the page to be set up. If you want a different size than the widescreen page it starts with, you will need to change it. Follow the directions below to change the page setup.
How to change the page set up on Google Slides
1). Go to File and select page setup.
2). Pick one of the 4 choices: custom, standard, widescreen 16:9 or 16:10. If you choose custom you will need to enter your dimensions (width and height).
Once you have determined your page set up you need to create your questions. If you want to use something you already have you will need to insert an image file (PNG or JPEG) on the slide or you can add it as a background. If you have a practice sheet but it is a PDF, click the button below for directions on how to change it to an image file. Directions for MAC and Windows computers are included.
If you are typing your own questions on Google Slides, you need to download the page as an image (PNG or JPEG) when you have finished it. This will make your questions the background on the slide. If you do this your students will not be able to delete or move the questions once you have set the image. To do this go to file, select download, and choose PNG or JPEG. Next, insert a new blank slide into your document. To add your image to the new slide, select the background tab in the toolbar and add the image from your downloads. The video below shows you how to do this as well.
Step 4 – Create your images to drag.
To create your images to drag you can use a shape or a piece of clipart. There are two ways you can place the cards that students will be dragging. They can be placed on the actual slide or on the left and right margins of the slide.
Next, create your cards by typing your answers on your shapes. Once you have the answers on the cards, save each card as an image (PNG or JPEG). You can use Canva or PowerPoint to create your cards as an image. You can watch the video below to see how to do it using Google Slides.
After you have created your answer cards, you will need to insert the cards into your document. On Google Slides, go to insert and choose image. Pick your image from your files or downloads. You will need to make the image smaller (check out the video for help with changing image size). Place your images where you want them on the slide and make sure everything works.
I have provided a video below to help you create a simple drag and drop activity on Google Slides.
Step 5 – Assign Drag and Drop activity to student.
Assign the activity to students. Remember to force a copy of the document. Do not have students work on the original. If you are using Google Classroom, choose each student gets a copy when making the assignment and it will automatically force a copy.
Conclusion
Creating Drag and Drop activities is a great way to get students to practice math skills. They are able to use the answer choices that are provided on the cards to help them determine if they are solving the problems correctly. If you would like to try a drag and drop activity for Free, click the image below.
You can also check out our store for lots of drag and drop activities on many math topics!
