(Beats the heck out of Heads Up 7-Up )

Which I call “Heads Up – Let’s Peek & Cheat” (which, face it, is the only way to have any idea!  It’s a ridiculous game.)

The Chair Game – The Map Game & The Coin(s) Game

Every once in a while kids just need to move.   If you haven’t heard of Go Noodle (It’s a website designed to help kids get indoor exercise at school)  or have but don’t want that much noise this is a game I invented that students love.

The Chair Game

This game couldn’t be more simple.   Pick two students two at a time (I chose using Popsicle sticks.) and have them race to be first to sit in each others’ chairs.  The first to sit down wins.   Sometimes the seats are across the room, sometimes it’s two students sitting next to each other.   All you have to do is push the chairs back to create running lanes.   You can go through an entire classroom of about 30 kids in less than five minutes.  It never gets boring for the students. When there is an odd number of students the teacher gets to play too.  Then you can clown around, pretend to ”cheat by picking up your chair so the other student can’t sit on it, or just holding it up..  (Since the game is over you can get away with this silliness without inciting more rowdy behavior- always a danger when kidding around with students.)   Students are too involved in the game to mess in each others’ desks.

If there is extra time I really need to kill I do a second round which I call “The Lightning Round” just because it sounds so cool.  Actually it’s ironically slower because the students now don’t have memorized where most everyone is sitting.

Since it’s only two kids at a time there is never chaos.   Rarely they will bump but never hard.   In the many many years I’ve been playing this game no one has been injured.  In the primary grades students are happy when I call a tie.

You can have a lot of fun with the names of the current pair of players too.   “It’s the battle of the girls with names that start with S.” or “It’s the battle of the _____ (group name)  versus the ______ (group name).”   And comments like “And  _____ wins by a cheek!”

At the start of the year it’s a good way to get students to know each others’ names.  I let them both stand first so that the first name called doesn’t get a head start.

If the direct instruction is going long you can bribe students through it by promising this game.  It has just enough action to be fun but not dangerous, and since it’s only two kids it doesn’t get very noisy because the seats are switched so fast the rooting is over before it starts.

Try it out!

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Two More Actually Educational Games  – The Map Game  or The Coin Game

Needed: One large map – traditional pull down style preferred.  Or a card with coins or groups of coins big enough to see from back of room.  (I project a coin bingo type card.)

The map game works better if students have been taught some geography.   This game is equally simple, pick two students as contestants.   Have them stand in front of the pulled down map facing the class. Then call out the name of a major location, feature, continent, ocean, state, city, etc.   The first student to put his finger on the feature wins.   This is powerful because the rest of the class is looking and pointing and shouting advice.  “It’s right there!”  (You can get a smile out of the person who was last by saying they are ‘second place!)

The coin game is a variation where you project or put up a bunch of coins in groups, I put up a coins bingo card and then call out the amount to find.   Then give hints if it’s hard.
For example:

“50 cents!”  It could be two… what coins everybody?”   (Two quarters!)

“Or it could be one quarter and two whats and a what?”

You can pick harder or easier values to be sure they match the abilities of students who are faster or slower learners.  I also make sure I don’t pit the fastest kid against the slowest because it’s too hard on that one kid’s ego.

These two games are fun, powerful and beat the hell out of direct instruction.   It’s also good review just prior to a test.

Happy teaching!

• Scott