Learning through Games

Do your kids ever hit you up for games like Heads Down Thumbs Up or Murder Wink? And how often do you say no? Get a little more game time into your learning day with games that you will let them play during class time which reinforce learning. 

 The first and close to favourite in my classroom is Buzz Off Hairy Legs. This spelling game is great for practising sight words, word families, theme words...the possibilties are endless. If you have never played BOHL (for short lol) here is the must know. Get students to make a circle (or stand behind their tables). The teacher chooses a spelling word (or sight word/theme words/random choice) and one by one the students spell it out letter by letter. When the spelling of the letter is complete, the next four students say in turn Buzz - Off - Hairy - Legs and the person that comes after this sits down. I usually make a rule that the first complete time around the classroom noone is out because I feel sorry for the kids who don't even get a turn. I also sometimes have a time limit for answering.

Have you played Heads and Tails? Its a great fun easy game and all you need is a coin (fake or real). It is a great game for exploring probability. Standing up, students chose heads (hands on heads) or tails (hands on hips or butt). Teacher flips the coin and calls out whatever it lands on. These are the people who stay in and the other students sit down. It is very interesting to watch kids thought process in this game.

I'm sure everyone has played some kind of 'guess a number' game. But why not give a maths specific focus spin? You can play so that students are only allowed to ask greater than or less than questions or why not do it with ordinal numbers and have students ask about the position of the number eg is it before 8th?

Those are some of our favourites in 2B. I hope you can use them in your own class next time your students beg you for a game :)