Board Games for the Classroom

 

Using games in the classroom to reinforce concepts is a great method to motivate your students to learn.  Using a board game allows the students to work in small groups and encourages all group members to become engaged in the review.  

Microsoft offers a downloadable template that allows you to customize your own board game in just a few minutes.  The board game template is an excel file and the game cards are a Microsoft Word file.  The pictures, text, etc on each game tile can be changed to suite any topic.  You can change the text on the back of the card and name your board game.  The front of the card has a place the question and there is also a place to add a hint or the correct answer depending on how you word the directions. 

 

The template can be downloaded at Microsoft Home Magazine.  The download links are at the top right side of the page.

Materials for Students:

• Print out copies of the game board
• Dice
• Game player chips - I used a large circle punch and construction paper to create colored chips
• A copy of game directions

I used this template to create a review game for the end of the year final exam in my Geography class.  My middle school students had a blast!  I chose to provide page numbers as hints to give the students some guidance to find the answer.  I didn't provide the correct answer on the card because I was concerned that some groups would cheat.  I provided students with a copy of the directions and reviewed them verbally with the group.  I chose to make the game board generic for Geography so that I can use it again.  For the next game, all I will need to do is create new game cards.

My Directions:

Geography Trivia Game Rules

Congratulations, you just landed your first geography internship!  Now the race is on to see who can make it around the world and earn each internship awards. 

1. Roll the dice to decide who will go first.  The player with the highest number plays first and so on.
2. All players begin on the Geographer Internship Space.
3. Roll the dice to see how many spaces you will move during your turn.
4. If you land on a Geography Trivia Question you must select a card from the deck and answer the question correctly to roll the dice again. If you need to use the hint you must deduct one space.
5. Keep track of each internship space you land on and write the award ID on your game chip.

Awards ID’s

Geographer Internship:  G

Historian Internship: H

Archaeology Internship: A

Museum Internship:  M

To win the game you must earn all four internship Awards.

An example of an educational game template for Geography.  Microsoft Excel and Word templates available from http://www.microsoft.com/canada/home/memories-and-crafts/articles/all-a-board-create-a-personalized-board-game.aspx were used to create the game.