It's All Fun and Games…

Photo by John Benitez on Unsplash

… but nobody has to get hurt! We are well into this year of remote teaching/ distance learning. I'm sure most of us have reflected endlessly on what we could do to engage our students more. Asking questions like: how can I make learning more enjoyable? Will today be the day that I spark some joy into my students' (as well as our own) lives? Most days, I turn off my computer, feeling like a failure. 

Over winter break, I allowed myself to not think about teaching in January, and I enjoyed my time with my family. We read books, I wrote, we baked -an insane amount of- cookies, we watched movies and shows, and we played a lot of games. My daughter is 3, so she's pretty easy to entertain with a simple game of Memory, but my son is 17 and not as easy to entertain. However, he even found our game time fun. We played dominos, cards, and board games almost daily. And even though I told myself not to think about teaching. I, of course, did. I wondered how I could foster this joy of playing games with my students in a virtual environment. 

At first, I thought about holding a Game Night with my students (which I still might do!). Then I thought this might be a way to fix a frustrating problem I have right now with my students: getting them to come and return to "class" on time. So that is what I have started, and so far, it seems to be working. I am using the first 5 minutes of each class's start (the start and after breaks) to play games with my students. We start playing right at the start time, and as kids join a bit late, they can choose if they want to participate in the game. The beauty is if they are a couple minutes late, they aren't missing anything academic. The great thing is I have more students logging on to our meetings on time, both at the beginning of class and after breaks. Not only is this working to my advantage, but I see some smiles here and there, which is 6th grade speak for "I'm having fun." 

*I found most of these resources on Teacher Pay Teacher already created by Golden State Classroom, which was nice and cut down on my prep load. 

Here is what I’m doing: 

Mondays: Word search/ collaborative puzzles: 

I love puzzles! On Mondays, I create and project a word search for students to work on. I've created word searching with vocabulary words, themes, book titles, and students' names. They use the chat on zoom to share the answers with the words they found. We only do this in 5-minute sittings. Therefore, they usually do not complete the puzzle even as a class, but I share the link with them to complete it if they want to. 

The collaborative puzzle is a site I just found, and I'm obsessed. To create and share a puzzle, you go on to the site, find puzzles, search for a piece of art that you are interested in, and select multiplayer. Finally, you share the link with your class. If students are interested in solving the puzzles, they click on the link and start moving the pieces around. So easy and so fun!

Tuesdays: Name the Gibberish 

This game is FUN! My 6th graders are so much better at it than I am. I found this resource of Teachers Pay Teachers (Golden State Teacher). You share the slide in presentation mode, and students raise their hands to guess the saying. We do about 3-4 right after the break, so I use the same slide deck a couple weeks. The example pictured on the right says, "Dog sledding." My students guessed that right away while I was still trying to figure the answer out. They love that they are better than their ELA teacher at this game. 

Wednesdays: Sixty Second drawings

Sixty second drawings (also from Golden State Teacher) is precisely that. You give your students sixty seconds to draw an object. Sounds easy, right? Well, after you get your students started with the easy level, you can move them up a level where they draw the object with their eyes closed. And when that level gets a too bit easy for your students, try the EXTREME level where students draw the item with the paper on top of their heads. If nothing else, this game is the most entertaining game to watch. 

Thursdays: Scattergories

Most of us have played some version of Scattergories before. To play this over zoom, you will want to create at least 20 lists (I use two a week depending on our schedule.).  Before I share the list, I ask a student to give me a letter. Then, I show the list of items and give the class two minutes to create their list with the given letter. After the time is up, students share out their answers. If someone has the same answer, they cross off their answer and they don’t get the point. When we have shared answers, they share their total points in the chat. I like this game because it helps students with word choice and being creative. 

Fridays (office day): 

Fridays are our office days, so we don’t have time for games. However, I do make sure to share some of the games that we played in Google Classroom. I do this so that students can continue playing on their own or with their families. 

I hope you can find some time in your schedule to play a couple of games with your students. I think it’s a nice way to remind my students that I care about their happiness and well-being.

Have a FUN week!

Jenni Merry