Quickfire activities are great ways to get the mind tuned in, but it will only work when talk is involved…

Imagine walking into the staff room with leadership telling you, quick you have 5 minutes to write a detailed description that you will be reading out to your colleagues, oh and it’s silently writing. Have fun and start now, quick!
Stressed much? I would be. So don’t do it to the students… but teaching the brain to respond quickly is an important skill to have. So, we need to support the brain and train it, not drain it. 

The activity is to write a detailed description, but for quick-fire to be effective it should be completed in pairs of threes and involve a lot of talk. 
Then the actual writing part of the task could be individual and independent, or still completed in a group, but the brain will be warmed up after the discussion. For juniors, the whole activity could be oral language based, or they might have picture scenes to choose from and describe for their partner to try and guess.