I've played this game with students from 6th grade to 9th grade. And everyone has loved it. It's a great review game and can be used with just about anything. But I've found the best way to use it is by requiring the students to answer questions and/or complete mini-tasks in order to score points. Depending how you structure it, it might be considered a mulit-mini-task lesson, if there is such a thing. The junior high students are divided into groups of 4, and each group is given a small white board. They are told to take turns writing their answers on the white board if that's what the task asks of them. But because each group has members of various levels this requires the group to work together if they want to be successful and have a chance at the typhoon score board.
Everytime the group performs/answers the task correctly they can pick points from the typhoon board. For example, "F4." I pull the sticky paper off and announce the points they are awarded for completing their task. The papers are labeled with points from 1-20 (5 points=1 house). And then there are "Typhoon" cards. If a group gets a "typhoon" they can erase the points of any other group--or blow their houses off the map! So sad, I know, but it's popular! And there are a few "Double Typhoons," allowing them to erase the points from two groups.
Here are the types of questions/tasks I've used with this age group:
- Simple word translation (good as a warm-up to the game or if time is running out)
- Unscramble the sentence
- Who am I? quiz (listen and they write the answer)
- Geography quiz
- Prepare a speech (self-introduction, favorite food, favorite sport, etc.)
- Word search (3 fastest teams get points)
- Complete a puzzle
- Finish a maze (spelling, ABC's, etc.)
- Olympic Medals--printed from the internet and I asked questions about the information on the page (i.e. How many gold medals to Australia get?)
- Put a Map on the board and ask them how to get from Point A to Point B
- Speed Reading Activities
- Look at a picture and make a few sentences
The elementary school students haven't practiced writing, so I focus on speaking, listening activities with them. And depending on the class and their confidence, I have done a pure vocab review. But with other classes, I've assigned them to give a speech, answer questions, etc. If the student representative for that round doesn't know the answer, they are supposed to ask their group for help! It's fun to watch them work together and teach each other!
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