15-30 min.
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Brief Outline: Students answer various English questions in hopes to choose a square from a grid and receive points while trying to avoid the evil typhoon squares.
Materials Needed:
- Typhoon worksheet
- A list of questions printed on cards or slips of paper.
- A large chalkboard-sized grid of squares. You choose the size of the grid, depending on how much time you have.
Detailed Explanation:
Divide the class into 3-5 member teams.
The object of this game is to collect the most number of houses while avoiding the typhoons. If a team successfully answers a question, they can choose a square on the grid by specifying its coordinates: “B3, please.” If that square contains a number, they receive that number of houses. However, if the square contains a T, the team’s houses are extirpated and must return all their houses.
The game starts by one student from every team playing Janken to decide the order of play.
The first team is asked a question from the prepared list. If successful, they choose one square from the grid.
The winner is the team with the most houses.
Variations:
- To practice reading, instead of you asking students questions, have the question written on the back of the Post-it notes and have the students read them aloud.
- Instead of teams taking turns, have one student from every team stand up and the person who raises their hand first can answer the question. If this option seems skewed in favor of one team, insert a 3-second delay in between asking the question and choosing a raised hand. This timer should give the slower students time to process the question. If there are multiple hands raised when the timer is finished, have the students play Janken.
Teaching Suggestions:
- Schools don’t advertise their supplies, so you will have to snoop around to find the poster machine. It’s a machine that enlarges a standard A4 size paper to a chalkboard-size. Label the grid’s rows with numbers and the columns with letters. Place random number values in the remaining squares. Also, don’t forget to include some T’s, which represents a typhoon. These number values and T’s are then covered over with Post-it notes.
- Optional: If you want to use your chalkboard-size grid for multiple uses, you might not want to write on the grid. Instead, attach magnets to the back of playing cards. The magnets stick to the chalkboard.
Tips/Cautions:
- The adhesive memo paper tends to curl, allowing students to see the behind the paper.
Comments:
- Good games! Instead of printing a larg chalkbord sized paper, I placed laminated A4 sized flash cards (with easy nouns) in a grid patern on the board. Then I wrote the amount of points (or typhoon) on the back with a dry earse board marker. To pick one, the students would say "I would like a bicycle, please" or what have you. Took a while to get the hang of, but I played it several times and the students get really into it.
- (Mar 23, 2011) Anonymous said: I used a simplified version of this with my 5th graders in elementary school, and it was really popular. All of the kids were really into it!