I know that I’m a day late but this has been our first FULL week back at school since January! Yikes…screech..what?! I know thanks to snow days, holidays, and professional development days we have not had a complete week of school in what feels like forever. As welcome as the short weeks and days off are, it’s so nice to be back with my littles and share all of the activities I have planned!
Let’s dig right into Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites, Chapter 4: Games! I’m so excited to be linking up again with such inspiring bloggers. I really loved everything about this chapter. Not only did it validate so many things we are already doing as teachers, but it provided many realistic ideas to instantly put into practice!
Right from the start Tate states, “You don’t stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing.” That right there was a slap on the forehead moment for me! I keep reading this book and thinking to myself, Of course! If that relates to adults why don’t we use it with our students!
Not only do adults benefit from game playing but so do our kids! Games most certainly have a place in our classrooms.
Some things I was happy to read that I’m already putting into practice with my students were memory/concentration games where students have to find matching cards with definitions and spellings. We play this in various ways. Whether it’s with vocabulary in different subject areas, related addition and subtraction facts, or homophones, my students love this method of game play for review
. I’m excited to continue playing a lot of buddy games in math after reading this chapter. Most of our introductory activities to new concepts in math almost always involve a buddy game of some sort! I’m hoping to implement more whole class games as review too.
Something I was inspired to try after reading this chapter was the idea of playing an interactive whole class game called, People Search. Marcia Tate explains it where students have to answer 12 questions but they can only answer ONE of the questions on their own! The rest of the review questions must be answered by friends in the classroom! I took this idea and ran with it for our compound word study. We played Find Someone Who yesterday and it was an instant hit!
We took it slow at first, going question by question. But, once the kids got the hang of it, the music turned on and off they went! We modeled from the beginning the polite way to ask a friend if they knew the answer and what to do if too many friends were asking the same person. The kids not only practice writing compound words but they were respectful, engaged, and working with students they may not always work with! Thank you Marcia Tate I will definitely be using this idea for more subjects!
I can’t wait to take more of these strategies and apply them in my classroom. In the next few days we will be using pictionary and compound word scoot to review our phonics skill! I also LOVED the idea of having students create their own games and questions for games! What a fantastic way to get students to review skills and engage with the curriculum. I love more opportunities for student-centered learning!
Are you already finding success with these new strategies? I hope so!
Enjoy the rest of your week and don’t forget to link back up to Queen of The First Grade Jungle for more fabulous bloggers’ ideas!
6 Comments
I love your Find Someone Who activity!! I have never tried something like that with my kindergarten kiddos, but I really think they would be able to do this! I think it would work really well for a math version of Find Someone Who. Thanks for sharing your great ideas!! Have a great rest of the week!
recipeforteaching
Thank you Heather! They had so much fun. You could definitely do this with Kindergarten, even if you needed to cut down the number of questions and read it to them they would absolutely enjoy it! Thanks for stopping by!
Great post! I have the same ideas to improve in my classroom. i too need to have my kids more involved in the questioning and game creation process.
Thank you so much Cindy! I was so excited to see one of my little ones bring in her own game for cause and effect this week! We're definitely moving in the right direction.
Great info! I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have. Project Cars PC Game Download
Then there are games just for people interested in robots, cars, fashion, princesses, ice skating, etc. So the games could have the same benefits, but those benefits might be better for certain people than others. 안저놀이터