Cell Phone Buddies Partnering Tool--iPhone version!!

When it comes to group work in my class, I always either choose the members of a group myself or just have each of my six tables work as a group where they are already seated.  This works fine for me, because I make the seating arrangements based off of who works well together.

However, I let the students have a little more freedom when it comes to partners.  I usually let them choose their own if they are just working with one other student.  The problem that I usually have with this is that of course, so many students always choose the same partner, and there is usually one student left giving me the HELP! face because they can't find someone to pair up with.

I know lots of teachers use clock buddies as a solution to this--students have arranged partners for the year that they choose, and all the teacher has to do is say "Find your 12 o'clock buddy" or "Go sit next to your 6 o'clock buddy!" and they can look at their clock picture and know who this partner is going to be.

Anyway, I was digging around in some old professional development documents and found a version called "phone buddies" and I decided that I will use this at the beginning of the year to set up some partnerships.

The version I found was a little outdated looking--the picture of the cell phone was a flip phone.  I don't know about any of you, but all of the students I have taught have touchscreen smart phones--and probably none of them have ever had anything different.  So, I decided to make my own iPhone version using a screen cap that I took on my own phone.  I edited out the letters under each number and added a line where students can write each other's names down.

This is what I ended up with:

 

 

I am going to try and make a more simple version that is just in black and white, but for now, this version will do the job.  At least it looks like a phone that this generation can relate to, right?

 

After everyone in my class has filled one of these out, I am going to have them glue this page into their Interactive Notebooks for easy reference!

 

If you would like a freebie copy to print yourself, you can visit my TPT page and download it.