Finish the Year Strong

AHHHHH! It's the end of the year and we are all exhausted! What are we going to do? My nerves are shot. Patience is gone. Kids are FULL of energy and ready for summer break. (Who isn't?) The problem is we still have a couple of weeks of school left. 

So what's a teacher to do?

How do you get through the end of the year? 

Games. Kids LOVE games. With a couple of pieces of construction paper, markers, and scissors, you are ready to go. 

Start off by asking kids what their favorite board games are and what makes them so great. After a discussion, give students a piece of paper to plan out their game board. 

Here are the steps that students need to follow:

1. Decide the theme of the game (space, favorite character, cars, etc.)

2. Design the game board and add lots of colors. They will also need to make game tokens for each player. They may need to make dice or a spinner to determine how many spaces the player moves.

3. Figure out the rules and write them down.

4. Create questions. (This is the educational part. Students cut cards out of construction paper. They write the question on one side and the answer on the bottom/back of the card.)

5. After students complete their games, they celebrate with a game day. They take turns playing each other's games and reviewing the content they have learned this year.

You can take the best games and laminate them to use in your class next year. This is a great item for your workstations/centers!! 

This game is played like Shoots and Ladders. The student had to write all of his numbers within the square. After he added the shoots and ladders, he asked for help making the game tokens. He decided that each player would roll 2 dice and add them up. Then, they would move that number of spaces. Super simple, but lots of fun!

This game is played like Sorry. Students have to answer a math fact question. If they are correct they roll a die and move that number of spaces. There are also special cards so players can steal each other's position on the board.

Hope these games give you some inspiration.

Hang in there. It's almost summer!