Tin Soldiers

This is a game that was invented in a fun way. Our students were waiting for their parents to arrive for our winter festival. We had gotten to the meeting place almost 10 minutes early due to an error from the office. Imaging a group of 12 students, with ADHD, who just had candy canes as a reward while watching The Nutcracker, and telling them to wait for 10 minutes in a single area. Not a pretty picture. My head teacher looked at me after asking the class for the fifth time to keep the noise level down. I immediately looked into my “mental filing cabinet” of games and made this up on the spot.

Here’s how Tin Soldiers works:

1. Line the students up in a single file line shoulder to shoulder.
2. This game is a quiet game. Introduce this by telling them that they are all tin soldiers, and toys don’t talk.
3. You play the role of General. You call out different orders to the group and they must follow them all to the letter! If they don’t, they will be taken off the shelf and not be sold as good little soldiers.
4. Start with simple commands such as “march”, “salute”, “turn”, etc. If you feel like it, teach the students the correct terms, such as “forward march”, “halt”, “about face”, etc.
5. The students must make all movements like a tin soldier. There are no joints. All stiff arms and legs.
6. If a student does not follow a command correctly then they are out. When they are out, they go back to the shelf (the starting line) and wait until the next round.

Sound familiar? This game is basically Simon Says with a different theme. I noticed that I could change a small piece of a game, give it a silly name, and I presented it in an exciting way, I could use all the classics in a new way.

Hope your new year is off to a great start!

THE GROUND IS LAVA!!

I love this game. This is not a new game at all. I played this as a kid. This game is a classic playground game that always comes back and entertains a new generation!

The game is simple. You need 3 things: participants, a loud voice, and a playground.

Here’s how it works:

1. The students all walk around the playground. They can run, jump, dance, whatever! As long as they are constantly moving.
2. Scream “THE GROUND IS LAVA!”.
3. The students must run and get to a point of elevation. They will only have 10 seconds (or shorter). You count down from 10. They are not allowed to touch the ground at all! As long as they are up they are safe.
4. You have the time! You are allowed to wait as long as you want. When you have decided that they waited long enough, call out “ALL CLEAR!”
5. They must start moving again all over the playground. They are not allowed to stay above the ground since that is cheating. They must be on the ground for some of their moving.
6. Scream “THE GROUND IS LAVA!” and start this process all over again.
7. If a student does not make it off the ground in the 10 seconds, they are out. They “burned up” in the lava as my students liked to call it. When someone is out, they can either take over from you and call out that the ground is lava, or they go and sit someplace until the next round.

This game is a lot of fun. My students and I have even made some adaptations over the years. The first is the timing. Once they got good at the game, we started to shorten the time. They would only have 5 seconds, then 3, to get off of the ground.

The second adaptation was the location change. We started by allowing all parts of the playground be safe. Then we started to eliminate certain areas. If everyone ran to the swings to get off the ground, the call would be “THE SWINGS ARE LAVA!” and you would not be allowed to go there. We also started to keep track of all the places that were lava. Eventually there would only be one place that was not yet lava. If you got there by the time the countdown ended you won the game.

This game is a great way to get your class tired very quickly as well as a great game for them to play on their own after you lead it a few times.

Enjoy and stay warm in this cold weather!

Teacher Vs. Class

This is a new tool that came to me while I was subbing.

During one day where I had an amazing game planned for my four students (yeah, a class of four! Be very jealous!), I waited and waited for the last student to show up. Turns out he was sent to the office and would not be returning to class! This totally ruined my plans! He was the one in the class who was looking forward to the game the most! THIS GAME WAS BECAUSE OF HIM! It was the worst. I had no back up plan. I had an odd number of students. I was stuck.

Being my “thinking-on-the-fly” self, I quickly turned the terrible situation into a game. This game is “Teacher vs. Class”. While this sounds super dramatic, it isn’t. It is super basic!

Here’s how it works.

1. Take a piece of paper or write on the board “Teacher” and “Class”.
2. Explain to everyone that we are playing a game today. The object of the game is to beat the teacher. If they win, they get a reward (in my case the students work for prizes on Fridays). If I win, I get the reward (in my case, I got their candy that they were working for).
3. At this point your class will be interested. Explain to them that for every positive action they do, they earn a point. Every negative action gives you points.
4. At the end of the class you will compete in a “Wipe Out” round. They will have to complete one task. If they do it successfully, they get all of the points that you the teacher have earned. If they don’t, you get all of their points.
5. If you choose to do this for a week (like I had to do), they will need to earn a certain number of points for their reward. We used 50 points, which they earned in the first three days from the Wipe Out rounds.

Now this seems more of a classroom management technique rather than a game. In a way you are correct. It can be that, and it can be a game.

Here is how my class played this as a game. We have been learning about “Bossy R” this week (if you don’t know what that is then look up a YouTube video on the concept of Bossy R in our language. Many of the videos are really fun to show your class. My personal favorite is Lin Manuel Miranda rapping about it.).

Here is the game we played.

1. I explained the Teacher vs. Class game.
2. I had the students line up at the board. Each one had a blocked off work space and that was the only place on the board that they could write. Each student had a marker and an eraser.
3. I would read a word from a word list. They had to spell the word, hide it, and show it to me only. If they got the word correct they got a point. If they worked quickly and quietly with no cheating they got a point. If they were loud or were a bad sport, I got a point.
4. Points were awarded for each child’s completion. Since I had 3 students, they could earn up to 6 points per word.

What could have been a horrible situation ended up being a week’s worth of fun in my classroom. We eventually got to play our amazing game with all four students, but when I only had 3 (which was every day but 1), we fought over points!

Happy Teaching!

Wriggle Worm

This game is a fun twist on a classic. Most people know “follow the leader” and so this will be very familiar to you.

This game came about on a cold and gray day of school when we were completing a state test all morning. The students were tired, antsy, and we needed to take a break. I was asked to take the students outside for a walk, but I don’t like just normal walks. The students needed to move around more than just talking a stroll! So, Wriggle Worm was invented.

Here’s how it works:

1. Students make a straight line behind the teacher.
2. Remind the students that unless you make noise, they should not make noise.
3. Begin your walk, but make it fun!
4. Go in zig-zag lines. Jump up and down. Run in a circle. Hop for a couple of steps. Take really big steps. Take really small steps. Run. Go in slow motion. Whatever you want!
5. The students have to follow exactly how you move and in the way that you move for the whoooooole walk. If you jump in a certain area, they must jump in that area.
6. Pause occasionally so students can catch up. Many will not be able to follow right along with you as you go.

This game can be a ton of fun. You will hear a lot of giggles behind you as you do this for sure. I’ve also done this around the school when it was rainy as an indoor recess activity and even a transition activity to move slowly through the building!

Wriggle your way into a good time!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I love monkeys! Always have. They are silly little creatures who are so stinking smart! They have learned to paint, type, build, and still manage to entertain us all the time! Honestly, look at that above picture and try to tell me that isn’t the silliest and cutest little guy ever!

This game came about during a lunch session at the private school when the lunch did not arrive on time. It was 5 minutes into our lunch time and we got the news that it would be another 10 minutes before the lunches arrived. What were we to do?! The kids were getting rowdy and noisy and worse, angry. So I made up this game on the spot.

Monkey See, Monkey Do is very similar to Simon Says. However, this is a silent game, and for most of the game, it will be run by the students. This game can either be played standing or sitting. That is completely up to you and how you run your classroom.

Here’s how it works.

1. Explain to the students this is a silent game. If they talk they are out. If they do not follow the rules they are out. (Adaptation: Place them in “monkey jail” for one round. Then they can come in the next round and play again).
2. Start with you as the “Monkey Trainer”. Whatever you do, the class must do. This will be movements with your arms, legs, feet, fingers, head, whatever! I generally start with some exercise moments, like jumping jacks, or if I’m sitting we nod our heads first. Just to get the feel of things.
3. Whatever the “Trainer” does, the “monkeys” must also do. This goes on for a few minutes. The movements must be appropriate for class. Then you can call for a “New Trainer” and the process begins again.
4. If the students are good about choosing new people every time you can allow the old trainer to pick the new one. If not, you choose or pull names out of a hat.

This game has worked very well for me at my last school and as a sub. All the students have liked the game so far and have made it their own. With the phenomenon of “The Dab”, I have seen many many MANY dabbing monkeys.

I hope you enjoy this game. The kids go bananas for it. 😉

Alphabet Soup

It is that time of year again when I’ve got a bad cold and my students are filled with energy. It is an unfortunate time for most teachers when they have days where they just do not feel up to the high energy of the students.

I was introduced to this game during one of my field placements in college and have since adapted it for my own usage. When I first saw this played it was part of a morning meeting activity. You can play it this way or how I do…which is whenever I need the kids to sit for more than 10 seconds. 🙂

You go around the classroom and each students has to say a food that begins with that letter of the alphabet. The first student is given the letter A (or you do A as an example). Next student says a food that begins with the letter B, and so on. Some are harder than others but there are foods that begin with every letter of the alphabet (Look up Q, X, Y, Z, or any other ones that you are of unsure of before you start). When the students finish you can begin again or use this as a calming transition tool.

When you get to a letter that the student does not have any ideas for then you can incorporate the lifelines. Students can have 3 lifelines as a group. 1 is ask the teacher for a hint. 2 is ask a friend for an idea. 3 is to skip it. I introduced the skip rule when I made this a challenge for some groups. If they skipped and did not complete the alphabet they did not get the full reward (model student points or other rewards). The third lifeline could also be “write it out”. The teacher will write the word and the student has 10 seconds to figure out what the food is. If they correctly say it then the game goes on. If not the game ends or there is less reward.

This game has been very popular with some of my classes and so we have created other versions of this game. Alphabet Rockstars is all about musical instruments (much harder than just food). Alphabet Drinks, Alphabet Zoo (animal edition), and Alphabet Closet (second hardest one).

Now to go and have some soup of my own and get well. Enjoy everyone!

Statues

This game is one of my favorites. I learned this from another counselor and then adapted it a bit.

It is very similar to Red Light, Green Light. You begin with one student (the “viewer”) at the front of the room. The rest stand in a line on the other side (the “statues”). Usually I have them place one hand on the wall to prevent them from cheating. The object of the game is to get to the other side of the room and touch the “viewer” on the shoulder without being seen moving.

The “viewer” begins with their back to the “statues”. When the “viewer’s” back is turned the “statues” are allowed to walk towards the “viewer”. The “viewer” can turn around at any time to look at the “statues”. When the “viewer” turns around the “statues” must freeze in place. If the “viewer” sees a “statue” moving the “statue” must go all the way back to the beginning. This continues until one of the “statues” touches the “viewer” on the shoulder. They are the winner and the new “viewer”.

Other Rules:

You can choose to use these rules or not. I’ve had to add some over the years because of some students trying to cheat the system. 😉

1. The “viewer” must turn around for at least 5 seconds at a time. Some kids will just turn their heads quickly to call everyone out.
2. The teacher has the final say on who is out. I’ve had some kids target others by watching them and calling them out if they blink. You have the final say. The “statues” are only out if the teacher agrees with the call.
3. You must know the name of the “statue” in order to call them out. This game is a fun one for the first week of school and helps them get to learn their peers names.
4. No running! If outside, they can run all they want. But no running indoors.
5. You can crawl or hide if you want. Depending on the set up of your room it is really fun to see how students problem solve and conceal themselves.
6. Silent Rule: Statues don’t talk so you can’t either.

This is a really fun game and easy to do. Once you teach it you can play it over and over again. Make your own rules and special versions.

Hope You Enjoy!