Guest Blog Week - Day#1: Let's Play!

As I shared in my most recent post, I got married this past Friday! My hubby and I are heading out on our honeymoon today, and I wanted to make sure that you (my amazing readers) had some great content available still while I was away. 

Six other awesome bloggers volunteered to write a guest post to celebrate in my "While the Teacher's Away, the Bloggers will Play!" guest blogging week, each sharing an idea for a game they love to "play" with the students in their classrooms. I figured this would be the perfect topic for this time of year as you may be able to use some of these ideas as a fun way to wrap up the year (for those lucky ducky's still in school), or use them as a great way to start out the next year!

That being said, I am here to share the first game idea with you all today to kick off the week!

One of my favorite games to play with my students is "Four Corners". This one is such an oldie but goodie. I remember heading to the roller skating rink as a child and skating from corner to corner hoping they would not spin my corner's number so I could continue the fun!

The game in the classroom can be used similarly as a game of "luck" or "chance". I generally use it this way when we have classroom parties or for a little brain break. For instance, for Halloween in my second grade classroom last school year, we played a game of Four Corners using Halloween themed vocabulary. Each corner of the classroom had one of these 4 posters hanging in it. I usually give the kids a time limit or in this case, I played holiday themed music and when it stopped, the kids had to choose a corner to reside. I then use my handy magnetic spinner on my wipeboard and spin away to determine which corner will be eliminated. 

You can see my previous post with more details about this specific version of the game here.

Another way the game can be used is to review key concepts. This version is less about luck and more about the students understanding ideas well enough to choose the corner that represents the best answer. For example, last year in my classroom, I used this version after my students had been working hard to understand key vocabulary related to probability. 

In each of the corners I placed one of the following four posters: certain, likely, unlikely, impossible. I then read off a circumstance. For instance, "We will fly to the moon in the next ten minutes." The students must listen to the idea, and then in the time frame given (usually a few seconds) must head to the corner that they feel best represents the answer  - in this case "impossible". 

Yes, you may see some of the students following along with the others, but I always ask students to turn and talk with someone about why they chose the corner they did, and then I ask someone who ended up in the right corner to explain to us why this is the correct answer. Then no matter who ended up where, it gives us a nice review of the important vocabulary/concepts.

Has anyone else used this game in your classroom? 

How do you use it?

Stay tuned throughout the rest of the week as each day another blogger will be sharing a super game idea for your to take back to your classroom!

Hasta luego. I'll be back in a couple weeks- with photos to boot!