Using Choice Boxes to Enhance Student Engagement

I recently found myself in a familiar situation: Despite differentiating, tiering, scaffolding, and spiraling, my class felt like two worlds. Half of my students were zooming through the curriculum like caffeinated hummingbirds, while the other half seemed lost and felt rushed.

So I decided to shake things up by building two choice boxes for my fifth graders. One I filled with numeracy activities and the other with literacy activities. These were self-paced independent learning stations designed to give students freedom, responsibility, and fun.

Balancing numeracy and literacy

At first, children were only interested in the numeracy box. Kids were practically running to it. Who knew that Uno could teach multiplication? Or that division cards and fraction dominoes could keep 10-year-olds busy, happy, and learning? The literacy box? Not so much. It was completely untouched. I had stocked it with National Geographic mini-books, word searches, and nonfiction quizzes, but not a soul touched them. I watched how students moved toward the math box. What made it attractive? The manipulatives, and the fact that it didn’t scream “schoolwork.”

I decided to rethink the literacy box to include active learning games. Still, I needed a way to keep it balanced and make sure kids would visit both math and literacy. Every student gets a weekly passport. Each time they visit a corner, they get a stamp. The rule? You need half of your stamps from each station by the end of the week: the same number of Ls for literacy and Ns for numeracy. Students also write down the name of the game they played next to the stamp, for quick reference and reflection.

This adds a simple layer of accountability. No nagging, no micromanaging, just intrinsic motivation and a bit of gamification.

Differentiating With Choice Boxes: The How and When

Students access the boxes during transition times, when they finish early, and some Fridays, when I build in a whole block dedicated to self-paced corner work. It’s not free play, but it feels like it to them. I set the expectation that students complete core classwork first, and then they can visit a station. This solves the dreaded “I’m done, now what?” problem, without resorting to more worksheets.

These stations also introduced choice into our learning environment. Kids feel empowered when they get to choose what they work on and how. It’s not a free-for-all—structure still exists via the passport system—but within that frame, they get autonomy, which leads to higher engagement and ownership.

What Kids Actually Find and Do with the choice boxes

Numeracy boxes. At first, I filled the numeracy box with 16 different math games. It looked exciting but quickly became chaotic. The box was overcrowded, and despite the variety, students kept returning to the same two or three games. I settled on seven games in each box, which provided variety without chaos.

In numeracy, games like fraction puzzles, Uno multiplication, and division flash card duels get them working together, checking each other’s answers (because I only include self-checking games), and trying again if they get it wrong. It’s hands-on, it’s low-risk, and it’s layered with meaningful review. I rotate through the games monthly, based on theme. One month we focused on the four operations, another month on fractions, and still another on time.

Literacy boxes. In these boxes I included a set of Scrabble tiles and a lot of games. For example, in Spot It, students race to find as many spelling-pattern words as they can in one minute. I also included language-themed Monopoly with trivia. In this game they’re moving, quizzing each other, and diving into vocabulary and grammar, without even realizing how much they’re learning. But the real hit? Do Commas Really Matter?, a game I created where students compare two nearly identical sentences with wildly different meanings: “Let’s eat kids!” versus “Let’s eat, kids!” They read both and draw a picture for each, and the light bulbs go off. They love this idea. There’s laughter and, more important, genuine understanding.

Why It Works

The stations have been key in managing differentiation in a way that feels organic. Instead of prepping five versions of the same task, I now curate games that cover key concepts at multiple levels. For example, the fraction dominoes have different sets, allowing students to self-select their challenge level. And with the literacy games, a student struggling with sentence structure might gravitate toward the comma game, while another might dive into word-building with Scrabble tiles. It’s differentiation without the drama.

At the end of the day, this wasn’t just about keeping early finishers busy or trying to fix behavior. It was about shifting how I offer choice to kids, especially in upper elementary, where they’re ready for more ownership but still want learning to feel fun.

This little system brought calm to those chaotic transition moments. It turned “I’m done—now what?” into something exciting instead of something stressful. It gave me space, actual breathing room, to check in with kids who needed more time, without a crowd of fast finishers hovering around asking what to do next.

And it worked because the learning felt real. It felt like theirs. So if you’ve got a dusty corner in your room or that one stack of unused task cards you keep meaning to do something with, maybe it’s time. Start small. Add games that don’t feel like school. Let kids choose. Watch what happens.