Pastball

Time: 10-20 mins.

Supplies:

• Empty trashcan
• Ball (not a hard one)
• List of questions about things that happened in the past

It was time. Game time. My fifth graders had been working on past tense grammar for over a week and desperately needed a chance to wiggle out of their workbook.  Taking them out of the classroom in pairs, I related the simple–yet rewarding–game of pastball.

The two students competed against each other. Taking turns, one would read the other a question from the list I had prepared. A wrong answer was reviewed before the student could stand at a predetermined spot and try to throw the ball into a trashcan. If she missed, she received five points.  If she made it, she earned ten.  I kept score and the game was repeated for as much time as we had.

The questions varied in theme and verb form required.  I asked them about everything from what they ate for breakfast that morning to some trivia questions about Spanish and American history.  The questions could be answered in either past simple or past continuous verb tenses.  However, this game could easily be adapted to any conjugation if the questions are modified.

After a few rounds my students started coming up with their own questions, and I knew then that this was a game worth playing.