It's ALL about the GAME!

Hi there!  

I don't know about y'all, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE playing games, and my kiddos did too.  (Yes, I said DID... ) I have stepped away from the classroom this year, and into a School Board Technology Facilitator spot!  I'm loving it, but as I was trying to write this post, and find pictures to help with showing my games, I ended up a little depressed.  I never thought I would leave the classroom, but my administrator was moving me back up to middle school - and HELLO!!  My name isn't OCD in First for nothing!! She felt she needed me in middle more than first - but I wanted no part of it!

ANYWAY!!  Back to our games!

We played games ALL.THE.TIME!  I started off buying my games through Lakeshore and other wonderful companies, but once I started creating my own worksheets on TPT, I realized I could also create my own games.  THEN IT WAS ON!!!

I created MATH games, ELA games, WORD games, QR CODE games, I HAVE WHO HAS games, and SPOT THAT WORD games.

First things First!

So, first I sit my kiddos in a big circle, and I explain the rules of the game.   I pick the leader as my "Opponent".  We play the game a few times, and explain the different aspects as we go.  Then the game becomes a center game.  I also used a lot of my games during small groups to help with certain skills.

I HAVE WHO HAS 

I have a ton of I Have, Who Has games, and the kids LOVE them.  You can play this game as a whole class or small group.  My kids actually liked playing 2-4 players.  They would pass out all of the cards and put them face up in front of them.  One person would start, and they would all look for the card that would match.  If the group was able to turn over all of the cards without any mistakes, they "WON".  :)

 QR CODE Games

 My students also loved these types of games.  This game we did a lot during rotation stations when we had time during our math block.  We didn't always use the QR codes - most of the time they just matched them up as a table group and checked each other.  I created six different sets (one for each table), so it was always a race to see which table could match them up the fastest.

CENTER GAME STORAGE 

I spent MANY dollars at the dollar store buying up their sandwich containers to hold all of my games.  But one day I found this handy dandy photo holder, and Oh MY GOSH - I was in LOVE!!  It holds 16 games all in one case.  I found my first one at Michaels, and then I bought two more through Amazon.  And then a parent gave me two more at the end of the school year.  I have to be honest - I have filled up four of them - that's how many games we had in our classroom!