Spin the wheel Classroom wheel spinner Random student picker
Calling on students without picking favorites
Hands go up from the same five kids every period. The rest of the room learns that if they stay quiet, someone else will answer. A visible spin changes that: every student knows their name could come up, so more of them actually think through the question before the wheel stops.
The 26 names here are placeholders. Replace them with your roster once, and the list stays saved in this browser, so the next morning it is still there. Teachers with several sections usually make one wheel per class period and switch between them under My wheels.
It also settles small classroom jobs that kids argue about: who hands out papers, who goes first in a presentation, who reads the next paragraph aloud, who picks the read-aloud book on Friday.
What's on this wheel
- Ava
- Liam
- Olivia
- Noah
- Emma
- Elijah
- Charlotte
- James
- Amelia
- Benjamin
- Harper
- Lucas
- Evelyn
- Henry
- Mia
- Jackson
- Luna
- Sebastian
- Chloe
- Daniel
- Aria
- Diego
- Aaliyah
- Malik
- Riley
- Josiah
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Using the picker in class
- Open Entries, clear the sample names and paste your class list from a spreadsheet or the gradebook export.
- Turn on Present so the wheel fills the projector screen, then press Spin.
- Press Remove from wheel after each pick. Called students move to Set aside, and the wheel gets smaller until every student has had a turn.
- When the round is over, press Put all back and the whole class is on the wheel again.
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Student picker questions
How do I keep the same student from being picked twice?
Take each name off after it comes up. You can press Remove from wheel in the result window, or switch on Remove each winner from the wheel right away in Settings so it happens on its own. The Results tab keeps a list of who was already called.
What about a student who is absent today?
Delete the name from Entries for the day, or spin and simply skip it. If you set a student aside by hand, Put back returns just that one name tomorrow.
Are my students' names stored online?
No. The roster lives in your browser on this device and is not uploaded anywhere, which keeps it simple from a student privacy point of view. The only way the names leave your computer is a Share link you send yourself.
Can I give a shy student a smaller chance?
Yes. A weight below 1 works: Ava *0.5 makes Ava come up half as often as a name without a number. Many teachers still keep everyone at the same weight, because students notice the smaller slice.
Is there a picker without the wheel?
Yes, the random name picker on this site draws names from a list without spinning, which is quicker when you need five names at once, for example for a group of helpers.
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Similar ready-made wheels
- Impromptu speech topics40 clean one-minute speech topics for class, club and practice
- Presentation topics40 light topics for a short talk, from sandwiches to lightbulbs
- Emotions wheel24 feelings for check-ins, from happy and proud to nervous and lonely
- Multiplication wheel45 times-table facts from 2 × 2 to 10 × 10, answers left off
- Irregular verbs wheel50 common English irregular verbs: say the past simple and the participle
- Brain break wheel32 one-minute classroom movement and calm-down breaks
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