Kids love games. It didn't take me long in my teaching career to learn that fact. The more fun and novel you can make a task, the more engagement you will receive from your students. At least, that is the way it seems to work with 10 year olds.
A few weeks ago, I realized that it was time to have a quiz regarding the concepts in our recent Science unit. I remembered a game that I have played before in order to help students prepare and review for a quiz such as this. The game is based on the old game show called "Hollywood Squares". The kids were thrilled to hear they were going to get to play a game to help them review but of course, when I announced the name of the game, the enthusiasm fell flat. No one knew what I was referring to. However, when I explained that this game was just like "Tic Tac Toe", they made the connection and were back on track and excited once again.
Part of this game entails the students having to go back through their unit notes and devise a series of questions based on the main ideas studied within a unit. We discussed as a class the different type of questions they could formulate such as True/False, Multiple Choice, Short Answer etc. Each student was asked to come up with at least three questions from unit content. Once we had our questions ready, I asked each student to think of someone famous and think of the reason that they were famous for. I had each student jot down the name and the reason on a slip of paper and anonymously add put it in a box I held. The students were perplexed and could not seem to make the connection of the questions they had just made and the now seemingly strange task I was asking them to do. However, once I started to set up the game area the excitement began to rise once again. I went over the general rules of the game and explained the safety precautions that needed to be taken. Yes, I was actually going to allow some students to sit on a chair on top of a table! The table was pushed against the blackboard and so the danger was limited but the kids thought this was the coolest thing I had done all year. Once all was set up, I started picking a name out of the box one at a time. I would read out the name of the famous person and really ham it up like a game show host would. The class (crowd) was encouraged to cheer as the famous person ran up to the Hollywood Squares set and find their chosen spot. The kids that were not chosen for the first round then became the audience that asked the questions to either Mr. X or Ms. O. We played at least three rounds so every student got a chance to be part of the Hollywood Squares.
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| Hollywood Squares set with other students asking questions |
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| Easy and quick to set up with 6 chairs needed |
What I realized after finishing this activity was that all students were engaged, had a blast and reviewed the content needed. No one needed to study any further after three rounds of this game were played and the scores the students received on the subsequent test were the highest they had received all year. This was an important reminder for me as an educator who also loves to have fun. I can't wait for the next round of Hollywood Squares!
