Instead of going to school today, I attended a professional development session on incorporating games into the learning experience. It was very informative and fun! A game that I could really see myself using was called “Picture Talk” – one person is a describer and the rest of the group are copiers. The goal is to get the copiers to draw what is on the given card. The describer cannot say what the group is about to attempt, but can mention anything else about the image (shapes, size, where they are etc).

For example, try this as I describe it below!

“Draw a medium-size circle in the middle of your paper. Then, draw a square around the circle and a bigger rectangle around that square. Lastly, draw a chimney like rectangle on the top left.”

I plan to alter the game to connect more with grammar or even math. I could have a student describe a sentence and everyone has to write the same one, given clues about the words. The goal of the game is to teach better communication and listening skills.

(By the way, you should have drawn something that looks like a camera)

Overall, this session today was beneficial! It got me thinking more about using games as review exercises as well as giving me ideas I can alter to match the needs of my students. I already try to make learning fun with extra activities and competitions, so this just set the ball rolling more in my brain 🙂