Sunday, June 23, 2013

More game board blues: Scrabble edition

I finally got around to ordering more sets of Scrabble for the kids, so we have 5 sets to work with now. I also ordered 4 sets of the venerable UpWords, which I plan on playing with the kids very soon. I predict that that game will be easier to explain than Scrabble, for as fun as Scrabble's been, it's proven difficult to explain. 

The middle school has Scrabble games and I figured it was time to bring the game into the classroom. as the middle school classes are all over 25 students or more, I did this for the high school classes. Because my coteachers hadn't heard about the game, I briefed them on the fundamentals of it so they could help too. They were all interested, so perhaps they'll use the game themselves in the future. And because I can't let a lesson go without a writing component, I made a simple graphic organizer which allowed the students to keep track of the words they used and the points they earned from them. I'd planned on having the students use the words in sentences, but we ran out of time. Perhaps I'll try it again in the future. One step at a time.

I'll be easier next time anyway because I won't need to use the PPT of directions again. Explaining the game took more time than I thought, but the kids loved playing it once they figured out what to do. They even enjoyed doing math in English. Some of my more reluctant students couldn't stop moving the letters around to form new words. This wasn't the real purpose of the game, but I let some groups bend the rules because they were otherwise participating and enjoying themselves. Sometimes it's best to let things ride if the kids are into it. These were kids who hardly spoken all year and suddenly they were showing off this word and that word with aplomb. 



Boys will be boys...


Vocabulary building 101...aww yeah. Special thanks to Miss Ho-bo for taking these pictures. That's her group's board above. Well done.

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