Captured Lesson - Tapple Rocks My World

An earlier blog of mine covered some of my classes' favorite games. Click HERE to read about and get links to those games and to see how I was dying to acquire TAPPLE. Well, good news! I got it this past weekend. I finally got to hold classes today because of FTE (don't ask, I don't know what it means other then see your kids when you're scheduled to), so we got a break in testing. I decided today was a games day. Did we learn? Of course, we did, but I like when the kids forget they're learning.

I used Tapple with my 5th graders the way the instructions said. They simply drew cards with topics on them as other groups used computer games and the Make-A-Monster game. For my first graders, I used some creative muscle to fit the game into my unit plan.

We will be starting an animal unit when we meet again regularly, so Tapple helped me with a pre-assessment opportunity. In the video below, you'll see the steps we followed to complete our small group lesson 

1. Our group of four broke into teams.
2. Each group took turns completing an addition/subtraction problem using die domes.
3. Once they found the answer, they found the corresponding number on the sheet. The sheet had 12 categories.

1. Part of an animal (nouns)
2. Animals that are bigger than you (nouns)
3. Animals that are smaller than you (nouns)
4. Words that describe animals (adjective)
5. Animals in the zoo (nouns)
6. Animals in the circus (nouns)
7. Scary animals (nouns)
8. Soft animals (nouns)
9. Where animals live (nouns)
10. Things animals do (verbs)
11. Pets (nouns)

4. Depending on the number we got, we started with the student who rolled the dice. After him, we went around with the hope that all four would answer correctly before the buzzer. 

5. After a successful round, the other team would roll their die.  

6. The cycle continued until time was called.

One fun part, if we happened to get the answer of 0, they each had to make an animal sound! I had such a blast today. Having a great lesson, smiling kiddos, and a great way to integrate math or any subject makes for a great day in teaching! I can't wait to post again. I'm so pumped!!

Learn / Play Flash... Introducing Tumble Towers Review Game

Alright, readers, this is the first of many! I finally got around to making the product for a review/game that I created for my classes. I began, first, using JENGA for sight words. With 54 blocks, even using both sides, the same ol' sight words JENGA didn't make the rotation for centers too many times. Kids were bored, and I couldn't come up with enough extension exercises for them. That's when I threw out that box of JENGA and came up with a more sustainable option. This is my new method. I was teaching every grade accept for third last year. I had to get creative so that I wouldn't have five different JENGA sets.

Here you have it, ladies and gentlemen! I numbered the blocks!!! I then created a set for each class for whichever subject I was teaching. Now, I will say the first evolution of questions was front and back of 8.5x11 paper.  For this round, I've decided to make cards. My stock paper sheets got bent too often, and cards are kid-friendlier. 

I hope you will have patience to hang in there for upcoming products if 5th grade ELA doesn't suit your current needs, but that's what I have up, and I hope you grab your own copy. Review of any kind is great for our students, but you'll see that games and interactive activities are sort of my thing! My hope for you is that getting a JENGA set and labeling the block is simple enough. I tend to overdo it sometimes, so I'm glad to offer something pretty simple for you. 

Have a blast with this product, and as I said... Stay tuned. =)

UPDATE: 
Third grade ELA review is available now.  Click on the cover image to get your copy today.

ANOTHER UPDATE: 
Fourth grade ELA review is available now.  Click on the cover image to get your copy today.

Exposing It - Our Favorite Educational Games in ESOL

The past two years, I've been lucky enough to have a lead ESOL teacher that ropes me into presenting at conferences. Being this green, I wouldn't say it's fun, but then, I realize how much I get out of it and how much I learn. It is at these conferences that I realize how much I love sharing! So, thanks Jennifer! Our presentation has been entitled Apps, Websites, and Activities... Oh My! We realize there is understandably a push for technology, apps, and websites at all times; however, talking to our attendees, we learned that there are still so many schools that don't have access to technology like our very advantaged district. We had a chance to meet people from rural districts that said they don't have Ipads. I even heard from a couple of teachers who didn't have wireless access at their school. I can't take for granted how lucky I am to be in a district with resources.

On that note, I am happy that we presented games and kinesthetic activities to the teachers to take to their students. I learned the importance of "unwired" activities when I completed my practicum in Liberia. I learned quickly that I could not rely on technology, and I think my students appreciate the diversity. I also see more interaction with these type of games. For this post, I am sharing some of my students' favorite games, both for language practice and test prep. Keep this in mind for any of those times you may receive an allotment to spend for your classroom, or take this list to someone in your school to add to the resource room.

I want to really emphasize here that having a game center on my choice board has been one amazing sight to see. Not only do students stay engaged; they manage themselves and each other. They have fun, and their social barriers disappear. If my lesson ends early,or if students perform great on an assessment, we have another chance to pull these out for a few minutes, and I play with them. I will also say that we've had many a fun and informative conversation during these games. How powerful is that with ELLs? It's my favorite! With that, the list of games. Clicking on the names will direct you to their Amazon links.

For test prep and review, my favorites are...

• Make-A-Monster - I've linked the 5th grade version, but it's available for grades 3 - 5 ELA. This one is ready to use without any extra work for you. There is also an answer card, so students can use this with each other.
• JENGA - You can write site words on these. I create my own games for JENGA and will be a posting those in the next week or two. (UPDATE: See the new post for Tumble Towers Review Cards! More to come.)
• Eggsperts - Use these for your made up review games or online quiz show games. You'd be amazed how crazy excited the students are when they walk in and these are set up.

For grammar and language practice:

• Zingo - I like this game for my Spanish-speaking newcomers. They are able to join in yelling out the words since it's pretty repetitive.
• Apples to Apples - Use this to teach students new vocabulary, synonyms, how to use adjectives and nouns. This practice is especially helpful for Spanish speaking students due to the fact that nouns and adjectives are used in the reversed order from English.
• Jeepers Peepers or Headbandz - Great for practicing the language, but also teaches students how to ask questions and how to use interrogative words.

For word work and spelling:

• Chunks - Helps students use blends.
• Word on the Street - Students pull category cards and spell words to be the first team to clear their letters off the board.
• Boggle - A classic, right? The great thing about Boggle is that there are so much reproducibles online for centers. I like to add points for the number of letters in their correct words.

Of course, there's a plethora of games that could be listed here. For instance, I can't wait to get my hands on Tapple! I just wanted to list the ones I've used and have seen success with. I hope that you will have fun using these games and not be afraid to use them in your classroom. There are so many ways to differentiate and extend lessons with these games. Your new language learners have built-in models with their classmates; and you can offer challenges to your stronger students. Have those students create new questions to add to the games. They can write sentences using words in the games. Have students write a persuasive paper about which game they get play or why they should play more games. Challenge them to use their game-playing experiences to create a class review game of their own!! Thing Blooms, y'all. Think of the impact that will have on their learning! Please share your classroom's experiences with games. I'm all ears, and can't wait to hear your ideas!