By: Steve Patterson
Submitted: 2010-08-16 20:26:28 | Word Count: 530
Teachers are always looking for creative ways to engage their students and make learning more fun. Simple, yet inexpensive games can serve as tools to help students learn and retain the material that they are being taught. Learning games are also useful because not all students in a classroom learn best in the same way.
Some children are visual learners, meaning that they retain information best when they see it written down. Children like this often read a lot. Others are auditory learners, meaning that they learn best when they hear the information. Still other children are kinesthetic learners, meaning that a hands-on approach works best for them. These are the types of children that like to do science projects and build things. Learning games are useful because they can reach students with different learning styles. Here are some examples of how two popular games can be used as learning activities in the classroom.
Bingo
This classic game can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. Bingo can be used very effectively to review vocabulary words and is easy to create. To get started, make a blank Bingo grid on a piece of paper with five rows and columns, for a total of twenty-five blocks. Make sure to mark off a free space in the middle. Write twenty-four vocabulary words on the board from the latest unit that the class is studying. After explaining how Bingo works, have the students copy the words down, one in each block. You can use chips from a board game or set of checkers as markers, or just have students mark off the blocks with their pencil. Call out the words in random order until a student reaches Bingo. As a variation to get students to remember the meanings of words, call out the definitions and have students mark the correct words.
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Jeopardy!
Children and adults like this popular game show and a very simple, inexpensive version can be created in the classroom. All you need is a poster board, some index cards, sticky notes, and the material that you are testing the students on. Set up the poster board with categories that the students are studying, such as animals, plants, etc. Then use index cards to write the dollar amounts ranging from $100 to $500 on each. Place an answer related to each category on sticky notes. Put the sticky notes on the board, and cover them with the index cards with the dollar amounts. Divide the class into two or three teams and let each team take turns. When the team chooses a dollar amount and category, pull off the index card to reveal the sticky note. Read the answer aloud and have students give the correct question. If the team gets the answer correct, they get the dollar amount added to their total and if they miss the question, the next team has the chance to answer.
Learning games do not have to be complicated or expensive to be effective. Simple activities such as these can promote learning in the classroom and provide a positive learning experience for students of all ages and abilities.
