30+ Ready-to-use Digital Whiteboard Lesson Plans for in the Classroom

As good as digital quizzes, puzzles, and worksheets are, sometimes we want to offer our students the possibility to get creative or express themselves freely on paper.

In this blog post, I’ll show you ready-to-use lesson plans with a digital free-form whiteboard, which will allow you to give your students the freedom to do tasks digitally that they have only been able to do on paper until now.

I’ve divided this post into different categories. However, several whiteboard lesson ideas can easily be adapted to different grades and subjects than initially thought, so keep an open mind and get ready for some inspiration!

• Digital Whiteboard Activities for Language Classes
• Digital Whiteboard Activities for Math, STEM, or Science classes
• Digital Whiteboard Activities for Geography Classes
• Digital Whiteboard Activities for Biology Classes
• Digital Whiteboard Activities for History Classes
• Miscellaneous Digital Whiteboard Activities

All whiteboard activities below were created with BookWidgets and can be used for free. When you open the link, click on the Make a copy button on the top left of the page or access our group folder, where you can see all the whiteboard activities. By duplicating the widgets, you can edit them to best suit your needs or translate to other languages before sharing with your students.

Digital Whiteboard Activities for Language Classes

Explore creative and practical digital whiteboard activities tailored for language classes. The whiteboard lesson examples below showcase interactive methods for vocabulary building, grammar practice, pronunciation exercises, and collaborative storytelling.

1. Reviewing vocabulary

This first idea is a fun, simple, and easily adaptable whiteboard vocabulary activity for language classes. You will see the camera icon on the menu on this digital whiteboard. This allows students to take a picture from their devices and add it to the whiteboard. By providing the students the opportunity to take a picture of their surroundings (for instance, their classrooms) and label them, you make the activity meaningful since the words they will use to label are part of their actual linguistic world.

You can use variations of this idea, adapting it to different rooms and locations, like places in the city, but also to review body parts, colors, shapes, etc. If you would like your students to work in pairs, have each student take a picture, add it to their digital whiteboard, and switch the whiteboard with a partner so they can label each other’s pictures.

2. Prepositions game

Prepositions can be tricky in most languages, and making a game out of this topic is a fun way to review it. Divide the students into small groups. Each group will have one “Room Organizer” per round. The other students of the group take turns giving oral instructions to the Room Organizer. He or she places the stickers (rug, window, plate, etc.) on the room according to their peers’ instructions and has to finish before the other groups.

💡 Pro tip! As a teacher, you can add stickers (icons or images) you want your students to use on the digital whiteboard. When they open the activity and click on the star icon at the bottom of the page, they will see the stickers you added. They can choose from the list and change their position and size.

3. Person’s description

In this whiteboard activity for English classes—or any other language, for that matter—students should follow the instructions to dress the people in the image. They can choose the clothes, hair, acessoires and beard from the sticker list. This way your students are learning new vocabulary about a person’s description, and repeat the colors in that language too.

4. Road Instructions

This activity is a must for your lesson plan in giving directions for an ESL class or any other language you teach. On one side of this split whiteboard, students will read the instructions on how to get from point A to point B, and they have to draw the route on the image on the other side. Here, we used a background image with two cars and streets, but you could make it more relatable to your students by adding a screenshot of the streets that surround your school, a very popular part of your town, or as a preview of a destination of your next class trip.

5. Crime Scene

This crime scene whiteboard lesson activity will keep even the more advanced language students engaged. Provide students with a digital whiteboard with a crime scene as a background image. Students observe the crime scene individually, then sit in pairs to describe the scene using the vocabulary provided. Afterward, in small groups, they hypothesize what might have happened in this crime scene by going through the provided questions. Once that is done, students click on the star icon to add more elements to this scene.

You can add to the instruction that they can only add a fixed number of additional items, which they can choose from the stickers list. After that, each group comes up with their theory for this crime scene and presents it to the whole class, and after each group has presented their ideas, students vote on the most plausible (or on the craziest) theory.

In this CSI activity for language classes students have a background image of a tampering and theft on the playground. What interesting theories does your class come up with?

💡 Pro tip! Use artificial intelligence to create different types of crime scene images!

6. Drawing dictation

Not only older students can benefit from the flexibility of free whiteboard exercises. In this whiteboard activity for kindergarten, students will hear the instructions for what they should draw on the whiteboard. As they hear the instructions, they use the digital brush and choose a color to draw the different items on the image.

💡 Pro tip! On a split whiteboard, students can adjust the size of each half accordingly. To do so, click on the vertical line that divides the two halves and slide it to the left or right, according to which size should be bigger than the other.

7. Comic book

In this whiteboard activity for secondary school, students give their interpretation of a book they’ve read by drawing on the board and adding speech bubble stickers to their drawings.

💡 Pro tip! The Noun Project has a great databank with free icons you can search, change size, orientation, and color, and download to use as stickers.

8. Book Report collage

Creating a book report collage is another fun way for students to wrap up after reading a book. In this digital whiteboard activity for high school, students add different images that represent something from the book they’ve read.

💡 Pro tip! Students can take pictures to place behind the frames using the option that allows the background image to appear over the students’ input.

9. Capital Letter A

Use this whiteboard activity on the tablet with your primary school students to practice calligraphy. This split whiteboard has an explanation video on one side and a background image with calligraphy lines on the other side, so students can practice writing different names. It is also great for homework.

💡 Pro tip! If you want to make this more fun, use this randomness widget with different names starting with the letter A. Student spin the wheel to get the names they have to practice writing.

Digital Whiteboard Activities for Math, STEM, or Science classes

Surprise your students with these fun math activities for the whiteboard and get inspired to use engaging digital whiteaboard activities for STEM or science classes.

10. Dino Arithmetic

It’s always fun for younger learners to do coloring activities. This whiteboard activity for younger learners will motivate your students to do the math and color the image according to the results.

💡 Pro tip! This kind of whiteboard activity is better done on tablets or smartphones since students can use their fingers to color.

11. Winter Math Activity

Your students will be surprised after completing this incredibly creative winter math whiteboard activity. It combines adding elements to the Cartesian plan according to instructions and snowflake stickers to create a sweet winter image. Can you guess what image it is?

12. Origami Cat

This whiteboard activity will challenge your students to use their spatial thinking skills to copy the origami cat by arranging the geometric shapes in the right position. You can make a game out of it by having students work in groups and giving the group that finishes first a treat.

13. Periodic table

Sometimes, small changes can make a big difference in terms of students’ engagement. When teaching the periodic table for the first time, instead of just having the students stare at it on their notebooks or blackboard, give them a digital periodic table. Using the periodic table as a background image on a digital whiteboard will allow students to paint the elements in different colors according to their categories. Students can sit in pairs or groups to exchange their knowledge about each element and compare their color choices for each element.

14. Wave properties

This whiteboard question is part of a more extended Physics lesson plan about wave properties. Using a background image on which students have to determine the vibration of the points given will help them grasp the theory by making it more visual.

15. Trigonometry

Making it visual is also essential when it comes to Trigonometry and learning about angles. Use this simple digital whiteboard activity to test your students’ understanding of this topic and explain the angles to their classmates.

💡 Pro tip! Add instructions to your activity. Students will read the instructions when they open the activity and can reopen the Instructions window by clicking on the “i” button on the top right of the page if they want to read them again.

16. Newtown’s Laws of Motion

Instructional videos play a fundamental role when teaching challenging topics. This activity, which combines a video quiz and a whiteboard question to test the students’ understanding of Newtown’s Laws of Motion, is the perfect way to wrap up a lesson about this topic.

💡 Pro tip! Remember that when creating a video quiz, you have all 36 question types to choose from, among which the whiteboard question type. This is an awesome option for your students to summarize video content graphically.

17. Party room

This whiteboard activity for vocational school students challenges event planners to place the given elements within the party room. On one side of the split whiteboard, there are the elements and instructions, and on the other side, a background grid page represents the space given for the party room. Students use different colors for each element and can easily erase and change the disposition if needed.

💡 Pro tip! Use this activity in a STEM class to practice spatial and strategic thinking.

Digital Whiteboard Activities for Geography Classes

The creative geography whiteboard lessons below will engage your students and bring variety to your classroom.

18. Economic Regions in the USA

In this digital whiteboard activity for Geography class, students color the map according to the different economic regions in the USA. This hands-on approach will help them connect the information about the different economic regions with their location on the map.

💡 Pro tip! Enable submitting of answers so you can see your students’ answers and provide feedback

19. The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

Awaken your students’ geographical curiosity by showing a video about the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, paired with video comprehension exercises and a whiteboard activity in which they have to create a travel itinerary that includes all Seven Wonders.

💡 Pro tip! Use a whiteboard activity to add variety to longer geography lesson plans. You can also use other types of questions, such as true or false or fill-in-the-blanks.

Digital Whiteboard Activities for Biology Classes

Teaching Biology can be challanging due to its complexity and details. These fun biology activities for the digital whiteboard allow your students to explore different aspects of biology and be engaged while doing so.

20. Blood flow

Make your biology classes more interactive by adding a background image of the concept you want to teach and having the students draw on it. In this example, we use the direction of the blood flow.

💡 Pro tip! For other ideas on making biology lessons visual and interactive, check out our blog post.

21. Human organs

In this amazing biology whiteboard activity, students place stickers on the human organs on the body. It is a fun wrap-up for a lesson about the human organs.

💡 Pro tip! Remind your students that they can enlarge and reduce the size of the organs to ensure correct proportions.

22. Biology Pictionary

Bring some Pictionary fun to your Biology class by having students work in pairs to review some botany content. One student draws on the whiteboard a concept you have taught them, and the other has to guess what it is and explain it in more detail.

💡 Pro tip! Use a randomness widget, which student A uses to spin the wheel and get the concept they need to draw for student B to guess.

Digital Whiteboard Activities for History Classes

Although using an interactive timeline seems to be the go-to option for history teachers, interactive history activities take the modern History class to a whole new level.

23. World Explorers

With this whiteboard activity for history classes, students have to draw the routes of four famous explorers and place the stickers with the faces of the explorers to indicate who took which route.

💡 Pro tip! Tell students to use different colors to draw the routes, making it visually clearer that there were four different routes.

24. African Colonies

This African geography activity challenges students to identify several different African countries on the map and tag them with the flags of the countries that colonized them. Once all flags are placed, students sit in pairs, compare their notes, and discuss whether their answers are correct or not.

💡 Pro tip! Use this activity as part of a high school history lesson plan. After the students finish working with the whiteboard, the teacher can moderate a discussion about the colonization process and encourage reflection about why some countries colonized more than others and the influence of colonization in Africa on current geopolitical issues.

Miscellaneous Digital Whiteboard Activities

Regardless the grade or subject you teach, there is always something you can create with a digital whiteboard. Be it interactive kindergarten lessons or a more challenging lesson plan for highschool students, there is always something you can create to motivate students. Below you will find a selection of whiteboard activities for different needs.

25. Color the letters

Naturally, we can use free-form whiteboards in any class and level. In this whiteboard activity for kindergarten, you will get the little ones excited about finding the letters of their names and coloring them.

26. Senses in my garden

In this other whiteboard activity for kindergarten, students take their tablets outside and draw something from the garden or park in different categories: something they hear, see, touch, or smell outside.

27. Traffic light

This exit slip for primary school can also be used for virtually any level you teach. Students color the traffic light according to their understanding levels and explain their choices.

💡 Pro tip! Use a whiteboard for creative exit slips that will engage your students. Check out our blog posts with 60 ready-to-use exit slips.

28. Winter conversation starter

In this winter conversation starter, students observe a background image depicting people doing all kinds of different winter activities. They circle the activities that they did on the previous weekend and then share the image with a classmate.

💡 Pro tip! Use search-and-find images depicting different contexts. This German website has great scenarios that you can use with your primary school students, and you can download them for free.

29. Emoji art

This creative whiteboard activity for art class combines a randomness wheel with emojis and a blank whiteboard, where students should create their digital art based on the images shown in the randomness wheel. Get ready to see some fun art!

💡 Pro tip! If you want your students’ arts to have more elements, add more wheels with different emojis.

30. Movies and books

Encourage your students to compare a book they read with a film made based on it. Students use this whiteboard to draw a scheme of the differences and similarities of the works and discuss it in pairs.

💡 Pro tip! Use this as the first step for a writing exercise. Students should write an essay in which they express their preference and argue why they prefer the book or the movie.

31. Photographer

With this digital whiteboard activity for primary or secondary school, students bond with one another in an engaging way. As requested in the instructions, they have to add several different pictures to their whiteboards. After all the photos are added, they sit in groups and spend two minutes discussing the people and things depicted. This is the perfect activity for the end of the school year and it will bring up fond memories.

💡 Pro tip! Enable the camera on the whiteboard widget so students can take pictures and upload them directly to the whiteboard.

32. Blackout poetry

In blackout poetry, poets transform a printed page by obscuring most of the text, leaving only specific words to craft a new poem. This artistic approach reinterprets existing text to unveil new meanings and emphasizes visual design, as the layout of the words and their surrounding spaces enhances the overall poetic message. Students use this whiteboard activity to black out parts of the poems and craft a new poem directly next to the original one.

💡 Pro tip! Students first pick the brush to blackout parts of the poem and then the text tool of the toolbar so they can easily write the text on the whiteboard.

Monitoring Student Progress on Whiteboard in Real-Time

When you use BookWidgets inside an LMS like Moodle, Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, and many more, you can track students’ progress in real time using the Live Widgets feature in BookWidgets. While your students work on a whiteboard widget, you can click on their names to check their drawings and annotations in real time.

💡 Pro tip! Make sure to go through our complete guide on how to monitor your students’ work live. Also, check out our Live Widgets webinar to ensure you get the most out of Live Widgets.

Grading and Reviewing Whiteboard Questions in BookWidgets

It is straightforward to efficiently correct whiteboard questions. This is a question type that is not corrected automatically. As you can see in this video, when correcting a whiteboard question, you have the option of using a pencil to mark on the whiteboard the part you want to correct and write comments next to the whiteboard. You can also zoom in to read students’ annotations better. Your students will be able to see your corrections and comments when they get their activity back.

💡 Pro tip! Make sure to go through our webinar about the entire reporting dashboard to understand how you can grade and provide feedback to student work and return it to your students.

Wrap up

The possibilities when working with a (split) whiteboard widget or a whiteboard question type within a (video) quiz or (split) worksheet are endless. Your students will have the tools to get creative and engaged and easily share their ideas, annotations, and art with their classmates. As a teacher, you can easily follow your students’ work and leave comments and feedback efficiently.

Which whiteboard activity was the most interesting to you? Are you inspired yet?

While the inspiration doesn’t come, be our guest to access our folder, duplicate and share the widgets we’ve created for this blog post with your students.

Want to learn more about creating engaging lesson activities with BookWidgets?

✔️ Sign up for upcoming webinars and view recordings on the BookWidgets Teacher Academy Page.

✔️ Follow BookWidgets on X / Twitter and LinkedIn and join our teacher community on Facebook! We’d love to see what awesome whiteboard activities you create.

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