I am always looking for new ways to engage and motivate my students to review different skills that we have gone over and when I saw these Crayola® Create a Game Kits, I immediately had to have them!
What was most exciting for me is that in each of these boxes there are enough supplies for your class to make four games! That is an amazing deal for the price of this set. Enough die, game boards, game pieces, spinners and cards and endless possibilities. You can easily make a review game for each subject! When I opened the box up and showed it to my students, their creative wheels started spinning. They couldn't wait to create!
There are many ways that you can structure the creation of these games. You can give the students total control or you can give them parameters or specific standards that you want them to focus on.
To try out this amazing set, I started off using it as an enrichment center for my gifted students, however after seeing how easy and fun they are, I will totally be using them with my at level and below level groups as well. I gave this group some guidance regarding which standards I'd like them to cover and then they ran with it. Since we have been stretching our vocabulary with Greek and Latin Roots using my Roots All Year Set. The students took turns creating question cards for their board game using the Sharpie® Fine Point Permanent Markers.
Once the question cards were made, the fun began. The students created the spinners, dice and game markers. Then, they brainstormed how they wanted to design their game board.
Everything was created using Sharpie® Fine Point Permanent Markers, Crayola® Pip-Squeaks™ Skinnies Markers and 30-Color Crayola® Twistables Colored Pencils - 30 Pcs. Hearing the students collaborate and explain their thinking, as well as agree and disagree with their partners in respectful ways was so amazing to witness.
I was blown away by both the ease of adding this into our center time, and how engaged the students were. Plus, having the students work together, think out of the box and take ownership of their learning was the cherry on top! It is a great way for them to extend their thinking and think like an expert.