I want to share with you my love of games! It is a long lasting love that has been with me since my childhood. Withstanding years of foul play and unmet expectations, my hope in the fun of games has not dimmed. To this day, I still search toy department aisles, eager to find a new game that will cause my heart to race and one that I am excited to introduce to my friends.
At IEW, we are often asked for advice in motivating students. Dozens of blog posts, articles, and podcast episodes surge forward as we seek to connect parents and teachers with helpful thoughts and ideas. In addition to equipping you with insights gained from years of experience, we also delight in filling up your toolbox with fun ways to break up the blocks of instruction and busywork. Below are some new ways to use our favorite games!
Years ago, a parent shared an alternate way to use the cards from the Junior edition of the Mattel game, Apples to Apples®. Use a stack of red (nouns) and a stack of green (adjective) cards. Have your predetermined teams or partners come forward, draw one of each type of card, and then roll a die. The team has to come up with a sentence using that noun and adjective, and the number on the die indicates which sentence opener to use. If you have not covered all of the sentence openers, then the remaining numbers are wild. The parent gave the example that in her Level A class, students had not yet learned the #4 opener, so a roll of “4” was wild—they could choose from the other sentence openers.
Some actual combinations from her class:
[careful] [inchworm] #6 “The careful inchworm crept.”
[cozy] [belt buckles] #5 “While I took a nap, my cozy belt buckles had a party.”
After writing key word outlines with my co-op class, we would often take a break for a language arts edition of the classic card game Spoons. For this game you can create your own cards based on IEW concepts to be learned. I used index cards to create cards with different sentences, and once a player had collected four cards that began with the same sentence opener, he would grab a spoon. While you will need to employ a bit of math to figure out how many cards of each sentence opener are needed to make it work for the number of students you include, I typically created six cards per sentence opener. You could do the same with parts of speech or dress-ups.
Vocabulary can be reviewed by playing Snowman (a new version of Hangman). Students are allowed up to nine mistakes while the parent/teacher draws the three traditional snowballs, stick arms, top hat, eyes, and a sad face. The matching game, Memory, can also be used as students match the vocabulary word with the definition they spied nearby! And, of course, who can forget Mad Libs® variations where all of the adjectives are blank in a classic story and students must call out their own quality adjectives. Parents and teachers will relish reading back a humorous version of the story! Lastly, Premium Members can download a copy of our Decorations, Dress-ups, and Delightful Diversions book. This resource contains a number of fun activities for literary techniques and includes the game Simile Shenanigans, which is a version of the GameWorks game, Balderdash®.
While I cannot imagine an individual not as enamored with games as I, there are times when no amount of folderol can motivate your students to write their next paragraphs. In Episode 250 (timestamp 13:28), Andrew Pudewa shares that not everyone has to like, much less love, writing. He goes on to explain that we are seeking to share the skills that allow students to become competent writers and that competence will lead to confidence. We all love things we are good at, games included! As we focus on equipping our students to be good at writing, we have a better chance of them enjoying something they can now do well. I love it!
by Katie Eades
