Looney Labs Educators Mailing list Archive

Re: [Edu] Games in the Classroom

  • From"Magi D. Shepley" <magid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateThu, 06 Apr 2006 21:07:35 -0400
I have had my students create Fluxx cards: you can find them on Hal Haag's Fluxx page. He didn't put all of them, and in fact, I only sent him the ones that were done by my students with cognitive impairments. I didn't give him the ones created by my students with behavioral disorders... Some of them were incredibly scary, and a few were incredibly illegal. ;) I intend to have my students do that this year, too... but I never seem to have time. But, I LOVE your idea, and now have an idea of where I can incorporate the activity. I teach a class on transition skills (job searching, some independent living, budgeting, applications), and we could perhaps create 'Transition Fluxx' with several of the goal cards being to get various jobs. I've also considered presenting/doing a paper on this for a special education convention. We have Uno Math, and I used to have dice that I did a similar activity with, though not with Yahtzee. I've made a lot of my own games based off of mainstream games. Another one we have (but that I need to get new questions for; the questions we have right now are no longer hard enough), is Community Trivial Pursuit. Its played with a regular Trivial Pursuit Board, and the cards are color-coded to the board: Light Blue is Community Places, Orange is Recreation, etc, etc. I did it several years ago when Trivial Pursuit was still popular and my students wanted to play, but even the Junior/Youth and Disney sets were far too difficult for them to enjoy.

Magi

Solomon Davidoff wrote:

Magi,

I think you have LOADS of possibilities with Yahtzee, as you can have your students, depending on their cognitive level, find different combinations, or even create or answer formula created with the dice . . . In fact, once they get used to the idea, you can bring in less familiar materials, like 10 siders and so on . . .

I've been toying with Fluxx in the classroom lately (and have to write this up, darn it!). Using Stoner Fluxx worked so darn well in my Political Science class (Collegiate level), that I offered extra credit for students who want to create "Poli Sci Fluxx" in that class, and "Sociology Fluxx" in my Intro to Soc. sections.

Kristin, any chance of getting some incredible discount on Fluxx Blanks, or maybe offering Fluxx Blank Decks for teachers? I'm REALLY jazzed about using these for my Sociology class next year, and already have quite a few ideas . . . as do some of my students. I'm even considering a Journal article on them as an alternative to flash cards, for revision (studying - sorry, been using loads of UK Sociology notes with my students lately) purposes . . .

-Solomon


<P><DIV>
<P>Dr. Solomon Davidoff</P>
<P><BR>
Professor/Inductor/Writer/Editor
</P>
<P><BR>Assistant Professor<BR>Humanities, Social Sciences, and Management <BR>Beatty Hall <BR>Wentworth Institute of Technology <BR>550 Huntington Avenue <BR>Boston, MA 02115 <BR><BR>Assistant Professor<BR>General Education/Broadcasting Faculty <BR>New England Institute of Art <BR>10 Brookline Place West <BR>Brookline, MA 02445 <BR><BR>Assistant Professor of History<BR>Arts and Sciences <BR>Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences <BR>179 Longwood Avenue <BR>Boston, MA 02115 <BR><BR>Biology Instructor<BR>Secular Studies<BR>Mesivta High School of Greater Boston&nbsp;<BR>34&nbsp;Sparhawk Street<BR>Brighton, MA 02135</P>
<P><BR>Cel - 617-953-4337 <BR>doctordavidoff@xxxxxxxxxxx</P></DIV></html>




From: "Magi D. Shepley" <magid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Looney Labs Education Discussion List <edu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Looney Labs Education Discussion List <edu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Edu] Games in the Classroom
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:51:33 -0400

Sounds interesting... Certainly something that would be worth looking at. :) I guess, though, that I wasn't specific enough. I was looking for things that would work with the games that the kids already know and enjoy... like Uno, Monopoly, Yahtzee, etc... but that could be done without actually having to play the game.

Magi

Kate Jones wrote:

Hi, Magi, Kristin and all the rabbits,

There are a few other games I know of that may help with doing math in a fun way. Assuming you want numbers with which to do arithmetic operations (as compared to most of the Kadon products that deal with shapes), you might try
these:

* Six Disks (Kadon) - www.gamepuzzles.com/histfun2.htm#SD * Lucky Sevens (Games Above Board) - www.gamepuzzles.com/msamuel.htm#MSL * Take a Number (soon to be released by Kadon as a supplement to Leap) * Leap (Kadon)- www.gamepuzzles.com/abstrct2.htm#LP * Shut the Box (sometimes called Flip Out and other titles)
*  Muggins

Shut the Box involves rolling two dice and using the two numbers to come up
with sums or digits from 1 to 12, with flippers to flip over with each
number obtained. In Muggins, roll 3 dice and manipulate the three numbers by
any math operations to get totals of from 1 on up. You can find these
through Google.

In Leap, place number disks from 1 through 36 by turns on a 6x6 grid to form
equations, criss-cross fashion like Scrabble with numbers. Six Disks
(numbers 1 through 6) and Lucky Sevens (coasters numbered 1 through 7) have dozens of shapes to solve by arranging the numbers to produce either all same sums, like a magic square, or all different but consecutive sums for
the rows in the figure.

In Take a Number, there are 25 different themes using numbers 1 through 25 in a variety of ways on a 5x5 grid. Take a Number is a supplement to Leap, played with the same equipment. It can be played by one, two, or teams of
players.

Magi, send me your snailmail address and I will mail you a complimentary copy of the Take a Number book, to see whether it would work for what you are requesting for your classroom. If you have number tokens from 1 through
25, and can make a 5x5 grid, you can try out all the activities in this
book.

-- Kate Jones
Kadon Enterprises, Inc.
www.gamepuzzles.com
(Also a Looney Labs Mad Lab Rabbit)






-----Original Message-----
From: edu-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:edu-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Magi D. Shepley
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 8:30 PM
To: Education list
Subject: [Edu] Games in the Classroom

I have noticed that my students infinitely prefer playing games over doing any other type of work, except perhaps cooking activities. In the past, I've always used ordinary commercial games like Monopoly, Yahtzee, Dominoes etc, for doing math. I've also used Uno... I have a set of "boards" with the 4 arirthmetic operations on them (1 on each card). The instructions tell the students to draw one Uno card and place it in the '1' box, and then repeat, putting the 2nd card in the other box. They also get a worksheet with a table... one number in one cell, 2nd in another cell, operation in the middle, and the answer. We use the standard Uno scoring for word cards (Reverse, etc are 20, Wild cards are 50). The kids LOVE it...

Does anybody know, or have you seen, similar things? The other favorite in the classroom is Monopoly. Scrabble isn't far behind, and Fluxx (though, surprisingly, Family Fluxx was not the hit with the kids I thought it would be!).

I would love to find some Monopoly math that doesn't involve actually playing the game. I am aware of the Trend publication products that have Monopoly themed workbooks... but they aren't really MONOPOLY! The books use the characters, but that is about as far as it goes.

I do teach kids with cognitive impairments (mental retardation), emotional disturbance, speech language impairment, etc. The beauty of the Uno math is that the kids can do it independently... and unless we're doing a group activity, I usually have the kids all working on different things because levels are so different. And, of course, we're ALWAYS trying to encourage independent work and asking for help when appropriate.

Magi
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