Prep time: approximately 1 hour
Class time: 15-20 mins.
Materials:
- 1 Poster board
- Markers
- Colored construction paper
- Scissors
- Glue
- Selection of questions–at least one for each space
Inspired by an extra spurt of creative energy this weekend, I remodeled one of my favorite childhood games into a trivia and verb conjugation challenge for my fifth year students. The premise of Snakes and Ladders is simple: to have enough luck to land on ladder spaces to move quickly towards the finish without falling back by landing on snake spaces. This version, however, adds intrigue in the form of questions on each space. If you happen to land on a space with a snake or ladder, the accuracy of your answers matters. On a ladder space, only a correct answer will allow you to take the shortcut, and a wrong answer on a snake space is what will send you tumbling backwards.
There is endless wiggle room with which to adapt this game to any classroom purpose or topic. I used it as a fun activity that I could do with small groups of students with a range of questions to review content from all their classes while the rest wrestled with a formal grammar lesson. I may use it again later to help my students with test review. It added stakes, competition, and a bit of whimsy to questions and topics that they had by now studied time and again. This specific game also acted as a bit of a cultural exposure, as Snakes and Ladders seems to be a much more popular game in the United States than here in Spain.
In general, I’ve found that integrating lessons into games like this can be extremely motivating for the older students in elementary school. Transitioning between the simple, craft-filled activities of their younger years to the independent study that comes later in school can be boring for them at times, so I’ve tried to make it my responsibility to add some playful learning back into the classroom. This week, I can safely say it was a success.
Educación in English 