The end of the year is the perfect time to plan your lessons differently. Check out some of these games and other ideas.
The end of a school year is always challenging, but it can be fun as well for both you as a new teacher and for your students. Students also see you in a different light. The nice part about using games in the classroom is that there is a large variety to choose from. Here a few popular picks:
1. Bingo - The all time favorite Bingo game can be used with virtually any class, level and can be played with any topic. Make sure you have prizes ready!
2. Twenty Questions. This popular game can also be adopted to the classroom. Students can play in pairs or in small groups. You can also send a volunteer out of the room, have the class decide on an object, or a word from a list (virtually anything) and the student needs to ask twenty questions. Try a couple of practice rounds in order to give the students a feel of what kinds of general questions they can ask.
3. Scavenger Hunt. Give students a list of what to do, look for for, ask, write or anything that you as a staff have prepared. You can also prepare a web based scavenger hunt. Examples can be: writing the alphabet backwards, finding the price of a hamburger and french fries in Tokyo, India and Sweden and find out which one is more expensive.
4. Students can make up their own trivia games or you can give them the questions themselves with two groups competing against each other or groups competing.
5. Play Mad Libs. Kids seem to still love this!
6. Board games. This can stand to include Scrabble and Trivia Pursuit for example. Memory is not a traditional board game, but it is fun and kids can design their own memory game. If you have an active learning resource room, you can keep stock of printable board games from the board game factory.
Have certificates handy for game competitions as well depending on your class. Some games are meant to be played as competitions. You should know your class well before choosing any type of game.
When it comes to using games in the classroom, keep in mind that the best way to keep student motivation is to vary the type of game and length. Keep also the instructions simple and to the point. You could easily attach on the back of a board game the list of instructions. Kids should be involved in playing the games as well as learning from them as well so choose your games wisely.
