Thursday, September 24, 2015

More games your students play

Today I was taught a game by a student. He calls it three snaps. I don't know that I would do this with my first years (at least not yet), but for the uppers, it might be entertaining.

Update: I did this with my uppers today, and it turned out to be a really nice vocab activity. We all played at the same time, and it went really well.

I had them find a partner, and each pair took out one sheet of paper. They drew a square large enough for one word in the upper left corner and another, same size, in the upper right:


They then sit across from each other and snap three times, simultaneously. Then, simultaneously, each says whatever word come to mind first. They record their answers in their boxes and then draw a drop-down box from there.

ANIMALOCEAN


They then snap another three times, and each says a word they think is common ground between the previous two, hoping each says the same word as the other. They continue recording and adding boxes until they say the same word. Sometimes this is accomplish-able in three rounds - sometimes it takes twenty-five.

It was entertaining for them, took them back through old words and new words, and was a exercise in thinking in a slightly more complex way.