Richard-Amato, Ch 12: Games

Richard-Amato, Ch 12: Games, p. 293 - 301

    I felt that this chapter could have given a few more ideas for fun games to play in the classroom. I listened to a podcast recently about the "gameification" of our society. Everything has been turned into a type of game. For example, by getting a frequent buyer card where you get hole punches for each time you spend money at a store, you are engaging in a type of game. There are lots of creative ways to turn classroom activities into games; they do not always have to be board games.

    I like the idea of playing word games in the classroom. One of the examples given is giving the students a word and having them make as many words out of it as they can. I did this with my students in a vocabulary class this summer and it was fun. I like the idea of doing a bean bag toss in which there are lots of words on the ground and whichever word the bean bag lands on the student has to give an antonym or synonym. The "Guess What I Am" game seems just like charades (299). I would add "Catch Phrase" to the list of games, because students have to use oral language to get other students to guess what is on their card. They keep each card their team guesses, the team with the most cards at the end wins.