An analog game for today! No internet connection needed!

 Hi everyone!

After giving you a few ICT-related ideas for original games and activities, I wanted to also include an "analog" one, or one that's old school and doesn't require any tech! For today, I bring you: Bottle Cap Spelling! 

This is a fun and engaging activity that helps developing readers of ESL polish their spelling skills. It works on many different concepts: letter name (alphabet) knowledge, phonics with letter sounds and general vocabulary recognition and recall! If you work side by side with the children in small groups, you can also ask them to read the word aloud to work on their pronunciation. In general, it's a winner of an activity. Here's how to carry it out in the classroom: 

You need to get a set of vocabulary cards with images on them. These would ideally be words that we've previously seen in class and that the kids are working on, not brand new words. Next, you get bottle caps with letters written on them. If this is too much time/effort to make, you can always find beads or small tokens with letters on them in a shop for purchase. In any case, you have to have a lot of individual tokens, each with a letter on them, so that the kids can manipulate them. This is a multi-sensory activity because we're working on our language skills but through the manipulation of physical objects. 

Each child has to turn over a vocab card, recall the word and then get tokens to spell that word. Then you get them to either read each letter name (C-R-A-B) or pronounce each phoneme (/c/-/r/-/a/-/b/) and then say the word, "crab". To further reinforce the learning, you can get them to copy down the word using a pencil and paper. 

I originally started using this activity for the last year of Infants but I think it's also a really fun and valuable activity to use in 1st and even 2nd of Primary! What do you think? Let me know your opinions!

Blooket - gamify your study experience!

 Yet another entry coming to you now with another great ICT resource to help your students learn! Here, I present to you Blooket: a simple gamified resource where you can make question sets and then choose from a variety of game modalities to play your set. Before we delve into it, I have to say just one disclaimer: while you *can* use Blooket on the interactive whiteboard with the whole class, it's much more ideal if each student has their own device. I know this is asking a lot, most schools do not have such privilege, so in my case, I make question sets and then use the function assign as homework so the class has a personalized link and each child plays at home if they want to. That being said, let's check it out!

This is what the question-making screen looks like:

If you use Quizlet, you can import your pre-made question sets and not have to do the whole creation process over again! In my case, I don't use Quizlet so I do create my sets from scratch. But once you have a set made, it's yours forever! You can choose multiple choice for the answers (2, 3 or 4 options to pick from) OR EVEN "write in", where the students have to type the answers! I love doing this in 3rd grade and up because it ensures that they're not just randomly clicking and getting lucky, they have to really know the answer AND ALSO how to spell it and use the correct punctuation. 

Once you have a set made, you can choose to play solo or assign it as homework. If you assign as homework, you can set the duration that the game will be "alive" for and it will generate a link that you can pass along to your students. Then (even in the free version!) there's a small report that it generates for you, the teacher, so you can see who is playing and how they've been doing: which questions they've gotten right and which they haven't. 

Let's do a practice with the Café game mode:

The idea of the game is to serve customers food in your café. But to get the food, you need to hit "restock food" at the bottom. This will prompt you to answer a question. If you answer correctly, you get food to give to your customers. You need to keep up and continue answering to get more food or else your customers will leave hungry!

A typical question comes up like this:

And when students get it right or wrong, there is instant feedback:

There are many different game modes to choose from, the Café is just one of them! I have used this resource from 2nd grade up through Secondary and most students really enjoy it!

Here's the link for this particular question set! Let me know what you think! 

Blooket for Unit 2: Bedroom

Baamboozle - it's motivating, provides instant feedback and can work on all 4 language skills!

 Hi, everyone!

I'm back with another great resource and example activity for you! This time, we'll be looking at the resource Baamboozle and how you can create awesomely motivating games for your students! This does require an account but it's free and easy to set up. While you can always search for pre-made Baamboozles, I prefer to make my own question sets, as I can ensure that these align 100% with the vocabulary and grammar my students are working on in their textbooks. I also create pictures to go with each question so that it's highly visual and there's no room for confusion. Here's what the questions look like:

When you finish making a question set, you're ready to play! Just click on play, then decide how many teams you want, if you want power ups or not (similar to quizzizz) and then begin! The following game board will come up:

You can choose to display more questions so that there are more numbers to pick. I like to have students work in their teams and have each team, when it's their turn, pick a number. They then have 1 minute to talk in their teams about the answer and (in the case of 3rd grade or higher) write down their answer on a mini whiteboard. The question initially looks like this: 

I include the picture of strawberries to reinforce the vocabulary and the boy with the thumbs up indicates that we're looking for an affirmative answer. Once the time's up, I spin a spinner to pick which team will answer. Once they do, we check: 

If they have the answer correct, they get a "point". If not, we correct the answer together on the board. Then we go back to the numbers screen and that team gets to pick the next number. Rinse and repeat. 

I cannot understate how much my students LOVE THIS GAME. I said "points" in quotes above because, inevitably, when we finish the game, they never even ask who won! They just love it intrinsically because they're having so much fun! 

On a personal note, I'm quite proud of coming up with such a simple yet effective game: it's so easy to make and it works on reading, listening, writing AND speaking! Below, I've shared the link to this particular game but I have many more made! Let me know if you like the idea and if you'd like to have more links!

Baamboozle: Foods (Do you like... Yes. I like. No. I don't like.)

Flippity as a game-making resource!

 Hi everyone! 

Today, I wanted to talk to you about a great resource called Flippity! This page is a free resource that allows you to make a variety of games using templates. You can make flashcards, a jeopardy-style gameshow game, drag-and-drop activities and matching games, just to name a few. My favorite resource is the Memory matching game template, which I frequently use in my ESL classes to help students review vocabulary as well as work on their memory executive function skills. 

To make a game, you first open the template from flippity. This will open in the form of a google sheet. Then, you simply fill in one column with the first items you want to match (I use vocabulary words) and the next column, with the items that will be paired. You can add image links and the images will be displayed! Here's a screenshot to show you how the completed template should look:

When you've finally got all your matching pairs made, you follow the instructions to publish to the web and then click on "get the link here" and the sheet will automatically generate a link to your game! Here's the link for this memory game so you can see how it looks when students play it: Flippity Memory Game

When students find a word, the game even pronounces that word out loud, so students can work on their listening and pronunciation skills as well! Check out the game and see if you like it! Also look at the Flippity website because matching games are not the only resource you can make, there are a LOT more!