Who Turned On the Oven?

My classroom is hot.  I mean the heater is on.  In. Vegas. Last week, the deep freeze was turned on high, and now it's the heater.  I guess the maintenance department is just making sure that everything's in tip-top shape for fall.  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So, want a game that you can make for ANY SUBJECT?  Want a game that kids will play ALL YEAR LONG and STILL love it on Day 180 as they did on Day 1?  Look no further. Well, actually, look down below.

This is a game that goes by many different names and have many different variations (sticks, index cards, river rocks, ext.) Just choose your element of design and you have a game.  All for the low price of whatever your "element".  (A box of large tongue depressors is about $6 at Walmart, index cards are $1 at the Dollar Store.)

Bang!  My students call it Bang! but you can call it whatever you want to - it depends on your catch-phrase that you use.  Ka-Pow, Blooey, or anything else that pops on screen when Batman and the Boy Wonder start to fight the bad guys works as well.

The one below is Money Bang! but I have versions for addition, subtraction, contractions, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and sight words.

This is how the game works: 

Set Up the Game: on a stick (river rock, index card...) write or glue coins of different amounts.  Put them in a tub.  On several sticks, but not too many, write an exciting word that has "swagger" i.e: Shazam! Bang! Pop! Blooey! Zap! Ka-Pow! 

To Play:  One child reaches into the tub and pulls a stick.  In the game pictured above, they must add the coins to find the correct amount.  If they get it right (another child will double-check because the correct amount is on the back), they get to keep the stick and try again. If they get it wrong, it goes back into the tub and the next kids gets their turn.  (They can have up to three tries in row in my room.) After their turn is over the next child gets to go.  If a child pulls out the Bang! stick, they LOSE all their sticks and their turn is over.  The kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to come tell me how many sticks they got before they got the Bang! stick.  This game could go for hours if I'd let it.  Every variation I have, the kids play as if they have NEVER played it before.  They love it, I tell you!  Pure magic for the price of a box of sticks.  

So this weekend between baby food and movies, I stumbled upon a pin on Pintrest and I found myself at this magical blog:   http://confessionsofateachingjunkie.blogspot.com  and her really neat end of the year gifts for students.  Today I had my students work on half of it and the other half I have to do at home (can we say surprise?).  I think they are going to turn out really nice.  Pics to come by the end of the week.  I have to get them done soon because...6 1/2 more days to go!

Tomorrow I will talk about one of my favorite games - Story Cubes!

Always - 

Shauna