UFO Attack!

GRAMMAR: General Game     SUBMITTED BY: Joel Walden     DATE ADDED: May 13, 2011     EDITED BY: まだ

ÒÓÔ    èé   30 min.   1 votes: 5-star If you're going to give this activity a low-rating, please post a useful comment to help make it better. SearchJHSActivity

Materials Needed:

• Die (the larger the better)
• Blackboard and chalk
• Large UFO clipart (not included)

Detailed Explanation:

1. After dividing the class into teams, have each team decide on a team name. While they're thinking, draw one house on the board for each team, the houses should consist of at least two walls, a roof, and a stick-figure inside. More details can be added to lengthen gameplay.
2. Once names have been decided and written under the separate houses, roll the die and write the outcome on the board, this will be your 'Laser Countdown'. Place the UFO on the board, next to the first house.
3. Have the first student in team one stand up and answer a question in English, if they answer correctly they can roll the die. Treating the houses like board game spaces, move the UFO over the appropriate number of houses, stopping over one of them.
4. Move the 'Laser Countdown' down by one and move onto the next team.
5. When the 'Laser Countdown' hits zero, the aliens Laser has finally charged and will fire down upon which house it's currently on. Erase one part of whichever house it on at the start of that turn.
6. Roll the die once again to reset the 'Laser Countdown'.
7. A team that loses it's entire house is considered 'abducted' by the aliens. From that point on any time the team answered a question correctly they can either chose to roll the die or rebuild part of their house.
8. The team with the fewest destoyed houses at the end of the game wins.

Variations:

• If the game is moving slowly I'll exchange UFO's and start using an 'upgraded version'. For this version, the UFO won't need to charge up it's laser, instead it will fire on a house each turn until the counter reaches zero, at which point I switch back to the normal version.

Comments:

• (Nov 28, 2011) Anonymous said:
  seems like a fun activity, but i'm confused on a major detail: how do you measure the laser countdown? where does it start from? is it a definite number like 10? or does it depend on the amount of times the die is thrown?
• (May 16, 2011) Chris B. said: If you've never had the chance to use Space Invaders in class yet, this is the perfect time to do it. Houses can be substituted by the protective rocks, and people can be substituted by the ships. Your kids may or may not understand the reference, so feel free to add Mario characters to the ships