Free Number Line Game from TpT - Grab a Banana

For the first week of April my elementary math number line game is free. You can find it here. It's a card game that requires some printing and cutting to make the components. If you have any feedback on the game, please let me know!

I included this information about the value of such games at the end of the rule document:

I knew from teaching math that number lines were important for visualization. I created a number line game years ago, but when I tested it with some first graders, I soon found my initial ideas had some issues. I put the game on the shelf. Then recently I heard Jo Boaler make a statement like this one, 

Researchers even found that after four 15-minute sessions of playing a game with a number line, differences in knowledge between students from low-income backgrounds and those from middle-income backgrounds were eliminated (Siegler & Ramani, 2008). (Quoted from here)

I don’t know that Jo Boaler would endorse this game, but after hearing her, I knew I had to return to it! I fixed the gameplay problems and tested it with groups of students from ages 7 to 11. They were immediately hooked! I have been so impressed with how even the youngest students had no problems playing, even when some versions had a number line with negative numbers!

Two Free Math Games for Elementary Students

It's been a long time since I've posted any games on this blog. I'm glad to get back to its early origins (not to mention its name). Here are two simple games I've been playing with elementary students.

Both of these games have some graphics to print and they need a few other items to play. The rule documents explain everything you need to know, but I'll offer some summaries below.

I use games like these in math to let students get comfortable with numbers, not to necessarily teach a concept. For example, I've seen younger students play and have fun with games using negative numbers long before they studied integers. I wouldn't give them an integer quiz after playing or even claim that they knew how to do basic operations. I'm happy to see them getting a general feel for how numbers work.

Watch Your Step

This game (pictured above) lets students move on a short number line with the roll of a die. Variations are described so that it can be enjoyed by students from at least 2nd - 5th grade. It works best with three players in each group. Each group needs a die, some pawns and the game board (which can be printed on a sheet of paper). They also need paper to keep score.

Here are the rules and the printable boards. I use this Jamboard to teach the game to the class. It has a scoring summary on the second slide. Be sure to change it so it matches the variation you are using. When teaching the game, I emphasize these two rules:

• Players can keep rolling on their turn. (Students think they roll once and pass the die.)
• Don't score the round until each player has taken a turn. (They like to write down points as soon as they move.)

Smash the Bugs (or Flip the Cards)

This game uses counting or addition at most, so younger players can enjoy it. It is based on the classic game of Shut the Box. Using cards allows students to count objects if they aren't very fast with their addition. It's also cheaper to make several sets, and it's easier to store.

Players play in pairs. You need to print and cut out a copy of the 10 cards for each pair of students. One set is provided with pictures of bugs on them. You can print blank cards too, and have the students decorate them with objects that they choose. You also need two dice for each pair of students and paper and pencil, if they keep score.

Here are the rules and cards for the game.

Classroom Game for Values and Opinions - Say Whaaat?!

I created this updated classroom version of my party game, Say Whaaat?!, using Google Slides. It's "the game of What matters most?" It allows one student (or the teacher) to draw five random words and the class tries to guess how he or she would rank those things in order of importance.

I and other teachers have used it for a fun icebreaker or to kick off lessons about goals and decision making. We've used it in meetings with adults too. There are many ways to play, including using it in online teaching situations (live or otherwise).

First, click here to get your copy of the Google Slides presentation for the game. Full Disclosure:  Please enjoy this version for free, but be aware it is a bit of a promotional tool. I put a link on the second slide to Amazon where you can order copies of the actual game. I license the game to a publisher and will receive royalties from actual sales.

This video shows the basic idea, but read below for all details, including suggestions for use in online teaching.

I'll explain other ways to play below, but here's the general idea.

• Don't actually click the Present button when you display the game slide (Slide 1) to the class. You have to be able to drag words around, so it can't be in Presentation Mode.
• Choose one student to be the Judge. Or you can be the Judge the first time if you like. The rest of your class or group will be trying to guess the Judge's priorities.
• The Judge draws five words from behind the Say What?! logo on the first slide. You can choose a word by grabbing one of the red "tabs" on the right of the logo. Each tab has a word (or words) connected to it. 
• After drawing out a word, the Judge drags it to a blank card space. At this time, order doesn't matter. Just start with the A card and repeat until all five cards have a word. See the example below of how this might look. Note: The Judge should not say anything about the words during this time.
• Now the rest of the students in the class will try to predict how the Judge will rank those five items from most to least important. They can just write their guesses on paper. For example, use the five words shown below. If you thought the player would rank Water as most important, you'd write C first. If you thought the second most important item would be Mail, you'd write B next. And so on. You might choose to have the Judge write his or her rankings as well at this time.

• When everyone has made their guesses, have the Judge explain how he or she would rank the words. It's fun if the Judges explain a little of the thinking that went into his or her rankings. 
• Players can keep score if they want, but it's just for fun and it's on their honor. They can count one point for every item they had in the same position as the Judge.
• To play a new round, delete the five words from the card spaces and then pick someone else to be the next Judge. Play as many rounds as you like.

Other Ways to Play

• The game can be played all at once or one round per day or week, etc. You can even assign the ranking portion as an assignment outside of class. Just have the Judge draw the five random words near the end of class. Have everyone write their rankings or guesses outside of class, possibly with a written rationale. They can come to class the next day ready to turn them in or discuss them.
• You can duplicate the first slide as many times as you like and pre-select the words in advance. For some lessons, it might be best to actually just type the words that best raise the discussion you want for the lesson. To type your own words, just draw out any word, then double click on the text box portion. It should highlight the word and allow you to type a new word in its place.
• You could use an online polling tool to have students submit their rankings. For example, I've done this with Google Forms. Each tool uses slightly different ways to set it up or different ways to enter their answers.The advantage is these tools allow you to show everyone how the class guessed.
• If you're working in a distance learning situation, you can combine a few of these ideas. You will probably want to select the words ahead of time as described above. Set up a as many slides with five words as you think you'll need. You could play live in a Zoom or Google Meet. Or you could download the slide as a JPEG image and just post it in Google Classroom. Students could submit their votes to you in a variety of ways or (if playing live) just record them on paper for fun.

A Note About Drawing Out the Words

There are a lot of words under that logo! If you keep using an unedited version of the Google Slide that I made, you might find you're always getting the same words in the initial rounds. That's because the words are in layers and you're always just pulling the words from the top layer. To solve this problem, draw several words out before you play and just delete them. That will ensure you're getting to the lower words in the stack. If you play multiple rounds and delete the words as they're used, this won't be such an issue.

Interested in Learning More?

I wrote a Designer Diary a couple years ago about the long history of this game. You can find it here on the Boardgame Geek website. 

Continuing the Game Design Club for Middle School

Here are a few more resources from the virtual game design club I've been running at our middle school. If you want some background first, see my introduction and this first tip I shared with the students.

Last week I started a badge system and listed some achievements. This post explains how I make the badges and share them with students. As an example, the image at the right is a badge students can earn by telling me a few games they learned about after practicing Tip #1.

If we were meeting face to face I'd be playing new and unique games with them to help them expand their knowledge. As it is, I have to encourage research. I created this document to get them started. Some of those game suggestions came from designers I've been contacting. More information on my work with them will come in later posts.

I should add that it's been a big challenge to have to teach kids about games through reading and watching videos. I have not been effective at it so far, so I'm working on ways to improve that.

Finally, I introduced the Tip #2 video and asked them a few questions about it. The tip is to start keeping game ideas in a notebook. Not all designers do that, but it has been a practice of mine from the start and I find it invaluable. Here's the video.

And later this week I will post this video. It's the first part of an interview with Stephen Glenn, a friend and successful game designer who started taking the hobby seriously right about when I did. He's had several more games published over the past two decades than I have and I appreciated his willingness to share it with me and the club.

In this first four-minute interview he talks about why he still makes games (it's not for the money!) and he gives a little insight into how he gets ideas for games. We had some issues with video in our Google Meet, so most of the visuals in the interview are just slides summing up his points.

Thoughts on Game Based Learning and Gamifying the Classroom

I started this blog eight years ago as part of my master's program. As it changed over the years, I drifted quite a bit from my initial purpose of sharing my classroom games on it.

Of course, the ed-tech landscape has changed a lot since 2011. In my district at the time we had just installed a big round of interactive whiteboards. Only one or two teachers had an iPad. I had never touched a Chromebook and no school I knew of was using Google Apps for Education (as we called them when they first came along).

A decline in classroom games on interactive whiteboards is just a part of the overall trend I've seen in recent years. It's been a gradual shift away from the bells and whistles with more emphasis on the learning. Even though I'm a game designer and even though I had a blast in those years using those bells and whistles for fun projects, the shift toward effective use of tech for deeper learning has always been my real passion.

After returning from Michigan's largest ed-tech conference in March, I was thrilled to tweet this observation. 

The best thing for me about the sessions I attended at #macul19 was the focus on instruction, relationships and culture instead of the tech tools. Tech can support and amplify the things that matter most.

— Mike Petty (@mpetty39) March 24, 2019

But what does this changing landscape mean for a blog with "classroom games" right in the title? Will it necessarily be a thing of the past? I sure hope not!

As we know, right along with the other changes in the ed-tech landscape, we have heard more about gamifying the classroom or game based learning. I actually stayed away from those terms on this blog for the most part, at least in any formal sense. But now as trends change and my blog title stays the same, I figured I'd touch on them directly.

Defining the Terms

Some people have mistakenly referred to gamification of the classroom and game based learning as if they're the same thing. Gamification can be a form of game based learning, but it doesn't have to be. I'll define them this way:

• Game Based Learning - Using a game to teach a specific topic.
• Gamification of the Classroom - Using elements of successful games to increase student motivation and engagement.

So if I have students play an online game about genetics to learn about basic terms and concepts, that's Game Based Learning (GBL). In these cases the students could tell you the game they played and what they learned about the topic at hand after participating in the lesson. Though I often didn't use the term and didn't always specify the learning objectives, most of my games highlighted on this site lend themselves to these types of lessons.

Gamification, on the other hand, just borrows elements from games that make them fun and uses that in the classroom. So maybe we take something like leveling up, getting a new avatar or scoring points and we make ways to do that in science class over the course of a marking period. It might be giving students digital badges for meeting specific objectives. We don't necessarily stop and play a game to learn, but the lesson or the overall progression through the course might feel more like a game.

My Observations

After years of experimenting with these two concepts in classrooms, here are some general observations I've made:

• Students definitely learn from playing games. The challenge (and it's a big one) is to get them to learn what you want them to. I love games and I love playing them in school. They can be a distraction from the content, though, and any actual learning in that regard often is superficial.
• I maintain that gamification in education is nothing new. School has, in a sense, always been a game. What else can we call it when the players acquire points and earn scores, hoping for credit that at best abstractly reflects their knowledge and skills? One can cheat at chess and on a math test. When I would write my syllabus for high school math, I couldn't deny it felt a lot like writing rules for my game designs. So school has always been gamified. The problem is it hasn't been a very fun game. In fact by today's standards, where gaming outside of school is a huge industry grabbing the hearts and minds of so many of our kids, it's laughable to think of year-long courses and rewards of letter grades as parts of a game anyone would want to play. 
• So it isn't gamification that's new, it's that we have learned new things from modern, more engaging games.
• I have not been a fan of gamification, because it's essentially about extrinsic rewards. Certainly badges, upgraded avatars and grading systems based on big scores are more exciting than working for that A- in math. In the end, though, it's tacked on. Call me idealistic, but I still long for the day students will be excited about learning the subject because it can better their lives.
• While I don't embrace gamification as an approach to teaching, my experience with and study of it point to four very important elements of an engaging, effective learning experience. These same things come out of research that has nothing to do with games. So it's not the games that bring the magic to a good lesson. It's just that game designers have put that magic to use more effectively than most teachers have. The four elements are:
• A clear goal - Effective teachers make sure the students know where they are headed overall in their learning and what the goal is in the current lesson.
• Student agency - Students can have some choice and control in how they reach the goal (and possibly in how they show they reached the goal). 
• Appropriate challenges - Each student is learning at the point he or she needs to be learning. It's not too hard and it's not too easy.
• Timely, actionable feedback - The learner finds out quickly if he or she is on track and gets some information on how to get back on track when needed.

So there are a few statements about games on my blog about classroom games. Maybe that will provide fertile soil for further on-topic posts in the months ahead! If not, at least I had the foresight to put "and tech" in the title.