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Oh Flying Tiger Copenhagen ... we do have a love-hate relationship, don't we? I love your products but hate that you keep taking my money 😅 Nah, just kidding. It's all LOVE 😍
I went shopping for notebooks last week. I needed them to be really pretty because ... well ... I'm me 😅 There are a few places that would provide me with a nice notebook and Tiger (as I call it) is one of them. Seeing as:
I left with a bag full of goodies. Among said goodies were these lovely, shiny, little things:
Some time ago I wanted to make a game for my kids and I was trying to find something like these stones. The problem was I didn't know what they were what they were called or where to find them. I did go to Tiger to look for this "something" I needed but at that point they had not yet read my mind 😂 So you can probably imagine how happy I was when I saw these on my last visit.
So what is this game I needed them for, you ask. Well, the original idea was slightly different than what I ended up using them for. This is what the original board looked like:
The idea: roll the die - pick one phrase/word from the corresponding line - if it's correct, put your stone on it - get the whole row to win the game. Simple, right? Another option: play until all the squares are filled with stones and see who has more squares at the end.
If you speak Polish you can see that the board above is for daily routines. Since creating it ... well actually since I started writing this post I made more ... and I made them better 😁
Honestly this is what happened: last night I started writing this post and I had one board. This post was supposed to be about a different thing 😜 But then I thought that I could actually make more of these and then I couldn't stop 😂
And now on to the thing I ACTUALLY wanted to write about 😅 It's another game, it also works on the premise of connecting squares with the same coloured stones but it's much bigger. And here it is in all its glory:
The idea is to connect four squares in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally. You can play it in one of two ways: either finish when the first person gets 4-in-a-row or continue playing until the whole board is full and then see who got more 4-in-a-row's. The second option means you revise more but it also takes more time.
If you read my blog you know that I try to eliminate my involvement as much as possible. I create materials with error correction built into them so that my kids don't need me to tell them if they're right. For this material I used my favourite PENpals 😍 PENpal is a device which lets you record sound onto practically anything, using little recordable stickers.
If you teach at a Montessori school or any other institution which gives their students time for self-study you need to get these babies! To be honest, you don't even need the self-study period! You could easily use them during lessons. And no, Mantra Lingua, the producers of PENpal, don't sponsor me ... but they should 😝
I used one sticker for each square and I recorder all three forms of each verb (I did the same thing with the vocabulary boards above). Once the student gives their answer they check if it was correct. If it's incorrect they can try and remember the forms and try again when it's their turn next time. It's important to have a rule here which doesn't allow to use the same square by another player in the same round. This way the student is really motivated to remember the correct answer to use it in the next round.
My boards are colour coded. The background corresponds to the PENpal which should be used with this particular set. Students can choose whether they want to play with one board or two.
If you want to make anything fold like this use sticky tape to join the two pieces together leaving a bit of space between them. Make sure that the sticky tape goes all the way around the two thing you're sticking together.
I made two types of boards: one has the infinitive form of the verb in the square and the student has to give the other two forms, and the L1 translation if you wish; the other type has the verbs in my student's L1 and they have to give all three forms of the verb. If your students are at the beginning of their irregular verbs journey you can ask them to give the Past Simple form only to claim the square.
The game can be played by any number of students, but I'd suggest not more than 4. I'd also set a time limit for giving the right answer. The time would depend on how long they've been studying irregular verbs for. I think 15 seconds is more than enough for a beginner. I'd go as low as 3 seconds for irregular verbs pros 😉
I've prepared the boards for you to download in two versions: with coloured background and without, so you may print them on coloured paper of your choice. To make mine last longer I laminated them on sticker paper, I peeled off the back and stuck the laminated front on card. They're basically indestructible now 😅
I guessing most of you will not have PENpals in your classrooms (YET! 😉). This doesn't have to stop you from using the games. You can use them with small groups or have your students work with their irregular verbs table to check fro answers. But if you really like the idea of not being indispensable you can get the English infinitive board with QR codes which I made especially for that occasion 😅 That is of course if you don't mind hearing my voice in the recordings.
Have fun creating ;)
Ewa