Five Review Games to Play with Cheap Dry Erase Cubes

Y’all know I love me some deals, right?  

Well here is the deal for you!

I have seen these dry-erase cubes at Dollar Tree (no, I’m not afraid to give a shout out to the popular destination of broke teachers everywhere!). I have seen them off and on all year and now that we are in the season of Review Games, I thought it might be a great chance to bust them out.

Note: Amazon has ones that are nicer but pricier. Your choice!

Anyway, let’s talk about what to DO with these cheap little toys!

*Pro Tip: for these to work with minimal hassle, you probably want a thin-line dry erase marker AND you want to ask the dice rollers to touch the colorful parts of the dice (not smudging the dry-erase parts)

Here are Five games I came up with that can use the Dry Erase Cubes.  Can you think of any more?

1. 3 Branches Cubes: Write the three branches on the first cube (twice for each branch) and write categories of things kids will need to know about each branch (like “who?”, “one responsibility of the branch”, “term lengths”, “requirements”, “check another branch” and” how do they get the job?” on the six sides of the dice.

Put your kids in teams and give each team a dry erase board, a dry erase marker, and a paper towel. Have a different kid each time roll the dice and have the teams race to answer what the dice combination says, like “legislative term lengths” or “judicial - how do they get the job?”

2. Document Cube: Write the following questions on the cube: “Who wrote it (1pt)” “when was it written (1pt)”, “Why was it written” (2pts), “what’s the main idea” (3pts), “Causes” (2pts) “effects” (2pts).

Now, put an excerpt of a document on the screen or smart board. Have a kid roll the dice and everyone tries to answer as quickly as possible on their paper. Or, have each team have a dice and each team does something different with the document.

*Pro tip: if you’re going to play this game regularly, you might print up a sticker label and put it on the cube so it doesn’t get smudged and you don’t have to keep rewriting these!

3. Full Year Review: Put the name of each of six units on one cube (like Rome, Greece, India, Egypt, Israel, and Mesopotamia). Put a common topic from each unit on the other cube (like, important person, cultural achievements, geographic boundaries, traded with..., inventions, and underrepresented groups). Then, have the kids roll the dice in a small group and say (or find in their notes?) something that addresses both dice -- like “underrepresented groups in Rome were...  the plebians and slaves”.

4. One Cube:  Use one cube to distinguish between several parts of a single topic, like “political parties (with a different political party on each side), or influencing government (with two sides each that say “media”, “individual”, “interest group”.  Or, you could label the one cube with the parts of the florida and US constitutions (preamble, articles, amendments) and have the kids tell what’s the same or different with the US and Florida constitutions about that particular part.

5. Matching: I’m not a huge fan of matching, but it could get fun with four dice. Put the amendment topic/text on one cube and the number on another. Have them roll one dice to start and then keep rolling the other until they get the match.

I freely admit to having a tough week. I’m not sure that these are my best ideas. Can anyone come up with any more great dry-erase cube games? Please share! We all need new ideas at this point in the year!

BTW -- happy May! This is it -- the last month of school! You (and we) can make it! The end is in sight!

Have a great week!

-Tracy

Review Dos and Don'ts -- and a game for the Brave

It’s the MOST wonderful time of the year!!

Yes, it’s REVIEW TIME!!!

Yup! It’s the time of year when all your darling little classroom elves swear that they have never before seen that content you are reviewing form October!

I know that most people either love or hate review games. So, in the spirit of holiday lists, let’s look at some Review Dos and Don’ts.

DO: Do make it fun (kids are more likely to participate AND are more likely to remember what they’re reviewing)

DON’T: Don’t make kids do a giant packet. That’s boring and kids are less likely to do it (and less likely to actually learn anything from it).

DO: Use higher order thinking! If the assessment is all over the DOK, then your reviews need to be all over the DOK.

DON’T: Don’t give all recall-level review. Because then kids just memorize stuff short-term and they don’t actually learn it long-term!

DO: Do use the benchmarks to guide your review.   

DON’T: Don’t just give the kids the questions to study.  That’s dumb. They all get good grades and they don’t learn anything real.

DO: Do give them the topics/benchmarks and help them PRACTICE different levels of thinking with the topics/benchmarks.

Ok -- let’s check out a new Review Game. It is NOT for the faint of heart!

You’re going to need to buy a couple of flyswatters....

Prep:

1.      Create/compile a list of vocab terms – and examples or non-examples of each. These examples could be much like the stimuli on their assessment, quotes, excerpts, images, etc. (I wouldn’t use straight definitions because students will memorize them and it won’t be higher order thinking and it won’t help them much on their EOC or final)

2.      Post the words on a wall/bulletin board that kids can access.  (not your SMARTBOARD!). Hall might be a good option if your room is too small

3.      Put a tape line on your floor that The Swatters need to be behind, a foot or two   away from the wall.

4.      Divide class into two equal groups and line them up behind each other and sit or stand in order.

Play:

5.   Explain to the class that each team will have the first student in line “play” at a time. When they have completed their turn, out of the two teams, the first student to “swat” the correct answer gets the point for his or her team. When the student is done with his or her turn, that student goes to the end of the line.  

6.   All students in line need to listen to the example since they might get a different example for the same word. They will listen better if they know they’re hearing “clues” about a word they might get.

7.   Read the example or non-example to the group. (Be clear if it is a NOT example). The two students with the fly swatters listen to the example.

8.   The first student to swat the correct term gets the point for his or her team.

9.   The team with the most points wins.

Benefits of Swatter Game:

·         Students examine multiple facets of a concept or vocab term.

·         Students are listening to usage and application of their vocab terms and practicing using and applying those terms.

·         Active and engaging activity.

Watch Out For:

Ø Kids struggling to remember terms. Maybe let them use their notes?

Ø Kids acting up in line.  Maybe take away points for teams not listening? Or remind students that if the Swatter can’t hear the hint he or she can’t get the point.

Ø Kids swatting each other.  The child who uses a flyswatter on another child is instantly removed from the game, his team loses points, and you use the discipline consequence for that kid that you would normally use. Please don’t punish the entire class for one kid who acts like a fool.

Soooo ... Are YOU brave enough for the flyswatter game? If so, let me know how it goes!! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

Beach Ball Docs

Where are we in the summer countdown? Eleven student-days of school left, right? It sure is hard to get kids to review for exams when it feels like beach weather outside!!

Lets see if we can throw a bone (or a ball) to the beachy wanna-bes (um, me included!). Let’s play our next review game with a beach ball, to combine the two. And for fun. And learning.

So, for me, one of the hardest parts of review is getting past the lower-level thinking. Getting past the review guide or review packet or review game that involves a list of terms or concepts.

So, here’s a way to do review with DOCUMENTS!!!

Because, depending on your exam, the EOC/FSA/district final will include roughly about 50% stimulus-based questions (and most of those stimuli are documents).

So how can we review using primary and secondary source documents? Here goes...

Higher Order Review: Beach Ball Docs

Prep:

1.      Select a series of documents such as quotes, passages, images, political cartoons, maps, charts or graphs within a unit or across multiple units.

2.      Print out one set of documents for each group OR prepare a slideshow to project the documents for the students.

3.      In clear writing, write one of the following questions on each colored section of the beach ball (adapt as necessary). Pro tip: deflate the beach ball a little AFTER you write on it, so it lands with less bounce.

a.   When and/or Where?

b.   Causes and/or effects?

c.    Why was it written?

d.   What is the main idea?

e.   Make a connection to another topic in this course.

f.        What perspective does this document represent?

4.   Break students into small groups and give each group a beach ball and a printed set of documents OR project the documents whole class one-by-one.

Play:

5.      Explain to student that they will examine documents based on a variety of document analysis questions/prompts on their beach ball.

6.      Use a timer and select an appropriate amount of time students have to discuss each document.

7.      Instruct groups to roll the beach ball and analyze the document based on the question/prompt rolled. Student should discuss and come up with a group answer.

8.      Groups will record their answer and points on the tracking sheet based on a point system.

                    1 point- When?, Why?                                                                    

                    2 points- Cause(s)?, Effects(s)?                                                      

                    3 points- connection, main idea, perspective

9.      Students will repeat steps for each document.      

10.  The group with the most points based on accurate answers at the end of the allotted time wins!

Benefits of Beach Ball Docs:

• Student collaboration and discussion.  
• Students practice document analysis skills and higher order thinking.
• Students examine documents with a different purpose each time.
• Students have to connect documents with related concepts and terms.

Watch out for:

• Kids getting off task. Circulate and “play” along to keep them on task.
• Kids don’t discuss answers as a group. Encourage teams to come to a consensus before writing their answer on the tracking sheet.
• There isn’t just one right answer. Tell students that it’s OK to have varying answers to each question/prompt on the beach ball for the same document. The idea is to get kids TALKING about the documents!

BTW, I have found beach balls at Walmart, Target, and Party City, and the dollar store. Generally for a dollar per beach ball, so you can buy one and play whole class, or you can buy several and have the kids play in smaller groups.

What do you think? Can you organize kids and documents and a beach ball or two and create meaningful, higher-order review? As always, I love to hear from you! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

SWAT Team

So, It’s that time of year...  Time for review games!

A reminder -- none of our kids (NOT A SINGLE ONE!!) are going to take a low-level, facts-only, memorization EOC or exam. I can only speak for Social Studies, but I suspect we are not alone on this...

Our EOC and final exams are written on the rough guidelines of 20-60-20. Meaning, ROUGHLY 20% of the test is Level 1 thinking, 60% of the test is Level 2 thinking, and 20% of the test is Level 3 thinking.

Which means 80% (!!) of the test is NOT recall-level content.

So, if most of the test is higher order thinking, how can I use review games -- WITHOUT dumbing the review games down to lower level?

Well, I have a couple for you. Let’s start with the rowdiest one, just for fun.

And, ummmm, you’re going to need two flyswatters and some masking tape.

Higher Order Review: Swat Teams

Prep:

1.      Create/compile a list of vocab terms – and examples or non-examples of each. These examples could be much like the stimuli on their assessment, quotes, excerpts, images, etc. (I wouldn’t use straight definitions because students will memorize them and it won’t be higher order thinking and it won’t help them much on their EOC or final)

2.      Post the words on a wall/bulletin board that kids can access.  (not your SMARTBOARD!). A hallway might be a good option if your room is too small.

3.      Put a tape line on your floor that The Swatters need to be behind, a foot or two away from the wall.

4.      Divide class into two equal groups and line them up behind each other and sit or stand in order.

Play:

5.   Explain to the class that each team will have the first student in line “play” at a time. When they have completed their turn, out of the two teams, the first student to “swat” the correct answer gets the point for his or her team. When the student is done with his or her turn, that student goes to the end of the line.  

6.   All students in line need to listen to the example since they might get a different example for the same word. They will listen better if they know they’re hearing “clues” about a word they might get.

7.   Read the example or non-example to the group. (Be clear if it is a NOT example). The two students with the fly swatters listen to the example.

8.   The first student to swat the correct term gets the point for his or her team.

9.   The team with the most points wins.

Benefits of Swatter Game:

• Students examine multiple facets of a concept or vocab term.
• Students are listening to usage and application of their vocab terms and practicing using and applying those terms.
• Active and engaging activity.
• Fun can increase serotonin, which can improve memory, pride in work well done, and confidence.

Watch Out For:

• Kids struggling to remember terms. Maybe let them use their notes?  
• Kids acting up in line.  Maybe take away points for teams not listening? Or remind students that if the Swatter can’t hear the hint he or she can’t get the point.
• Kids swatting each other.  The child who uses a flyswatter on another child is instantly removed from the game, his team loses points, and you use the discipline consequence for that kid that you would normally use. Please DO NOT punish the entire class for one kid who acts like a fool.

If it were me, I think I might use Civics 3.1 & 3.2 and post the various forms and systems of government and then give examples, descriptions, or connections for the kids to swat.

Are you brave enough to give two kids fly swatters -- and let LEARNING and REVIEW happen? Can you write a few examples and descriptions that use higher-order thinking? Are you BRAVE enough to try this game?

If so, email me and let me know how it goes. You’re welcome to send pix of  the game if it’s as hilarious as it was at a PCSB middle school this week with the Three Branches Tree.... Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy