games

Review Baseball

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:07:15 +0000

Summary:

Game to keep kids moving and having fun while they review specific facts. 6-8 players needed.

This game can be used to review facts about any subject, or quick math problems. It sounds a bit complicated but once you play it's very simple:

Questions should be prepared ahead of time on flash cards. At least 60 brief-answer questions should be ready in a stack. You will also need two dice, a scorecard, three objects for bases, and room to move around.

- 1 player is the Umpire, who will be asking the questions
- Rest of people divide into two teams, one 'up at bat' and one 'in the field'.
One person on each team will be the dice roller,

Down to Grade/Age:

3rd Grade

Up thru Grade/Age:

Middle School

Cooperative Reading Bingo

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:36:17 +0000

Summary:

Simple, no-pressure reading game. Adult and child take turns covering a bingo board that has pairs of words. The child chooses which word to read each turn.

A few key elements of this game: because the child can choose which word to read, he has control over the level of difficulty he is comfortable with. The pairs of words allow the adult to help inobtrusively by choosing a difficult word on her turn, which the child may or may not decide to pay attention to and learn from. The child feels free and is not subject to direct instruction or correction.

For added incentive, the markers may be pennies, raisins, beads or some other attractive object which the child can keep or eat at the end of the game.

Down to Grade/Age:

Toddlers

Up thru Grade/Age:

2nd Grade

How Many Questions?

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:11:20 +0000

Summary:

This variation on Twenty Questions teaches kids a bit of information theory and lets them take a different approach to powers of 2.

First, the kids should be familiar with the regular game of Twenty Questions.

Then, ask as an open-ended question: "Suppose instead of the whole world. you were only allowed to think of certain objects. How many questions would it take to find the right one? What if the questions had to have only yes/no answers?"

Down to Grade/Age:

Kindergarten

Up thru Grade/Age:

High School