Don't Get Zapped - Integer Operations

This is a really neat idea that I saw on an elementary school teacher's blog at http://swampfrogfirstgraders.blogspot.com/2011/01/dont-get-zapped-addition-version.html
and I think it could be adapted for my middle school students.



I thought it would be a great way to practice integer operations, fraction operations or any other operational skill and could be used for an independent game idea. I would like to plan to work in a 3 station group next year. As I am planning for the Common Core Curriculum, I am taking a tip from the reading teachers and creating a three groups (Red, Green and Blue). They will be working through rotating stations. One station will always be a skill self-check station... so I believe this game would work perfectly!

Basically, you put problems on popscicle sticks and place 30 of them in a container along with two "Take another Turn" sticks, two "Give Another Player a Stick" sticks and one "Zapped" stick which means you have to put all the sticks you collected back into the container. You keep a stick if you get the problem correct. I think I will number each problem and have an answer key handy so kids can check each others' responses. The student that wins is the student who has the most sticks when their time is up at that station.

I am very excited to start working on these games, but plan to use a PRINGLES container instead since my family devours these on a regular basis.

Today I decided to allow my 6th Graders to try-out the game entitled GRIDLOCK. They loved it, but as I played against a couple of my students I did have some ways I felt I could make it more challenging and put it more on a 6th/7th grade level. Here are pictures of the activity from today as I used it in my classes. I have created a more advanced version of this game that can be downloaded on my TpT sight.

 

 



 

Here are some images for the more advanced game FOUR TO SCORE.

 

 

 

 

Motivational Game Ideas for Reviewing Material

If you are looking for some good class game ideas to review content, you may like to check out this resource. This e-book includes 6 class games that can be applied to use ANY review content and the kids love playing these games. I have used these games numerous times in my classroom and what is nice about these is that all needed templates and game cards are already made for you to just have to print out and prepare once. I have these games on hand and can pull any one of them out anytime my students need to review for an assessment or practice a certain skill. You can find this e-book at my TpT site:

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Betta-Maths-Motivating-Game-Ideas-for-Any-Content 

If you choose to download this e-book you will receive a ZIPPED FILE containing a PDF of all directions, quick glances and templates, an interactive flipchart with all game boards as well as a Microsoft publisher version of the games.