Word Chunk - A fun, minimal prep game/activity

I first heard about this from one of Ben Slavic's dvds that I purchased ages ago.  I have since experimented with it in my classes.

While you could simply do it as a quiz or silly assessment with your students, I prefer the group activity.

My students on Fridays have PAT. So they already have groups. You could easily have them form the groups that day for the activity. Mine have to say a group chant and have a group name already established so that we can simply play this game.

So while I could have a list of every single word we have gone over for the year (or for years if they are in Spanish 2 or another level), I prefer this on the spot activity.

Mafia game - Presentation

This year I use PAT with classes to help with buy-in for being on task during class.

So this week we have a lot of accumulated PAT and since it's the end of the year, I thought we could play a simplified version of Mafia.

I got the idea from Martina Bex last year.

Changes I made:

• I decided for my Spanish 1 class to remove the doctor, because we never finish a game anyway.
• I added a point system because we never finish a game so that way it gives some more semblance of purpose

And here's the presentation I came up with for today to facilitate the game. The language for "se hace de noche" comes from an activity we do earlier in the year so it's familiar.

You could easily take away the language like "killing" to something else. I talk about how the mafia eliminates people, but might use the term "kill" if the classes are familiar with it. The people they accuse go to prison.


If you can use it in your classes, great!  The kids enjoyed the picture of their town in the presentation.

TPRS year 5 - Preferred Activity Time (PAT) continued...

I posted about this awhile back (see post), but I wanted to point out something I find interesting.

I used to do games every week probably twice or so.  I thought by Wednesday and by Friday we deserved a game.

I have found that with PAT, the fact that they have earned the game is so much more empowering to them.  It also helps during those blocks for them to remember how valuable their attention is (of course we still do brain breaks because I am not a slave-driver).

But notice this graphic to the left.  I have noticed that even with the reward of 1:00 per 15 minutes on task time and giving bonuses for people doing their jobs, we are still getting over 8:00 in some of the classes, which is really awesome for them.

They are constantly being complimented on doing their jobs and hearing that positive encouragement.  This has created an environment where the classroom is charged with excitement as they are walking into my classroom (as I shake their hand and say, "Buenos días".)

The classes that get that 8:00 or more minutes are doing beyond what I could ever ask and that magical fusion creates a class where we can learn so much more that PAT (and more of it) is the best reward to give them, because they are using class time so effectively.

I just wanted to brag about my students.  This is definitely an improvement on PAT since last year. I'm glad it's improving.

If you wanted to see how my board looks, here's another pic.  This is after a class period.  Then I add up the little bonuses (and subtract the negative 5 seconds (each tally) when I lose eye-contact).  The total is circled so I could add it to the spreadsheet.

It might be a little messy, but it has been working for me so far. The numbers are crossed out since I was adding them.  I also make a point to let them know why they are getting those bonuses.

If you don't use PAT in your classroom but find your class could be managed better, consider making the change!  I'm glad I have.

Agentes Secretos - Caramba (Game)

Today is a reflection of a game called "Caramba" (see rules here at the top)

So something that I love about teaching is how my activities continue to evolve each year.

My few years, I had NO technology at my school.  Therefore, no powerpoints, etc.

I originally had some notecards with vocabulary words and then a few Caramba cards.  We would play the game as the rules describe.  Then, I started making Caramba's into powerpoints.  That was more fun and of course was more polished.

I slowly transitioned into making "Caramba" more of an immersive experience with TPRS/CI.  I no longer wanted students to just translate something from one language to another (not that that might not have merit in reviewing structures we're going over), but I wanted to keep the game in the language and reinforce the words in context.

This works great with novels.  So in Spanish 1, we're going through Agentes Secretos (and thankfully it's pretty easy for my students due to the groundwork laid).

Today for their PAT (Preferred Activity Time), they needed something fresh.  So we played Caramba (see rules).

However, today I was able to add an element to the rules.  Since they already have predetermined groups for PAT, they sat in those.  They have team names and a chant already.  Before in Caramba, teams would take turns and of course, engagement would be ok.  If a team missed one, they missed it and we moved on.

Today, I allowed groups to steal the question for a point, but of course, they had to do their group chant that we do for review basketball normally.  It added so much more and just creates a more intense, competitive, yet fun atmosphere.  The chants have really enhanced my class this year to get more students involved.

I told my students Caramba is usually the favorite of many of my students (usually they either really love it or really hate it).

Here's the PowerPoint I made for today.  Feel free to use it in your class and change any answers.
Also, you might download it, since Google Docs tends to change formatting.

PAT (Preferred Activity Time) Fridays

From our game "Mono Malo" where kids look for
the "Mono malo" and the rest of us count in Spanish
while they look! Based off of Bryce Hedstrom's "el bebé feo" game.

This year, I have been trying out something new after wanting to for awhile.

Don't get me wrong.  My classes are generally good as far as behavior.  I have kids who don't always look at me or try to put their heads down like in any class.  I do my best to point at the expectations and remind them when they fail them.  Letting them know that is what I expect of them because it's part of their 50%.

But I teach at a school where we use Block Scheduling (4 - 90 minute periods every day)

What I found was that classes were really long and although I've found ways to break it up, it was hard to keep the steam going all year.

TPRS year 4 - Preferred Activity Time (PAT)

This year I have decided to implement PAT.  I have trained my classes fairly well the last two years.  But something that happens in my new school is a pox on my life: block scheduling.

While 90 minutes could thoeretically have wonderful implications for a Comprehensible Input classroom (more time to practice a story; more time to do extensions after story on the same day), it can be a beast for transitions.

Día 55 - Games

When I first started, I would do games all the time!  I mean, seriously.  We played games two times a week.  Sometimes if we could get through a book lesson quickly enough we would play games more often.  The most popular was always Matamoscas.  Then I learned about other games and have slowly been adding them in here and there.

The following is a list of games I compiled for someone on moretprs.net in a way to catalog some of the games that I've done in the past.  I would love to attribute them to people who came up with them. But I don't really remember where I got some of them from.

Here are a couple I have used over the years:

A. Caramba
Here's a brief explanation... if you have technology it makes it a little easier and you don't waste paper but I did it back before I had a projector. (download ppt)

• You make cards (slides) of different vocab.
• Then you insert some cards that say "Caramba" on them and scramble it all up. ( I usually do 10 Caramba cards/slides)
• you have students in teams
• have teams elect a representative (this is the person you will listen to)
• you show the vocab word (or show English word) or even something from a TPRS story and have them translate or finish or true or false... anything
• if they get it right, they get a point and they may continue or stop
• if they stop, they keep all the points they have accumulated for that round and never lose them for the duration of the game
• if they continue they keep going until they: 1) stop, 2) miss one 3) get a 'Caramba'
• if they get one wrong or a 'Caramba'; their turn is over and they lose any points from that round
• my kids have a love/hate relationship with this game.

B. Conecta 4

• I made a powerpoint and it's a tad tricky but it plays like the game 'Connect 4" with two teams
• instructions are included in powerpoint (slide 1)
• (download template ppt)

C. ¿Dónde está Wally?

• in previous years I used this to practice place vocab
• if you have tech, I have a PowerPoint template (download ppt)
• if you don't have any tech, you can print out pictures of places and glue them onto a piece of heavier paper with a small pocket at the bottom and then insert some different waldos into the pockets randomly. Have those pictures taped on the board and have the students guess.
• they write down their answers and if they are right, they get a point
• to build suspense I go person to person and ask "¿Dónde está Wally?" and they have to tell me a guess... then as a class we see if they were right or not

D. Jeopardy

• I have a powerpoint template (download ppt)
• if you don't have tech in your classroom, you can always write number values on the board with the categories and have a notecard with the questions and answers. I've done both and either one is successful with the students.

E. Sentence scramble

• I've come up with sentences and the cut them all up and had the students try to put them back together beforehand timed
• the group that gets the most wins

F. Crossword puzzle w/ clues

• I projected a crossword on the board w/ an overhead and then had each team with a different marker color. They were given clues for the words (in Spanish) on a piece of paper and then they had to figure out what the word was. One person could come up to the board from each team at a time to write a word in there.
• the winning team had the most words filled in correctly
• you can make free crossword puzzles at http://www.armoredpenguin.com and then project the pdf file saved to your computer without the clues on the board

G. Scrabble

• I made my own little scrabble sets on cut up card stock paper/notecards
• I made sure there were plenty of letters as well
• students drew like 15 letters at the beginning and always got 2-3 blanks at the beginning as well.
• first student would place a word down
• students would build off of that word (like in Scrabble)
• they would keep building off the of the words
• the winners had: 1) most words or 2) longest word

H. ¿Dónde está mi _?

• last year I had a student walk out of the class and stay in the hall... when they came back the other students had hidden one of their items... students then had to describe the person who took it.
• this could be adapted to describe body characteristics, clothing, locations like 'near' 'far' 'above' 'below' etc

I. steal the bacon

• if you're covering vocabulary... I liked printing out pictures last year when first introducing vocab. 
• After introducing it on the first day or second day, we had the students compete to grab the vocabulary word on a piece of paper before the other... this is an incredibly fun thing for them even at the high school age.... I just had them keep score...
• seriously, even though it's simple... students LOVE the competition

J. Memoria

• cards of things with pictures and spanish words or translation and spanish words
• students play memory with the cards
• take turns flipping them over; looking for matches
• if they get matches they may continue looking

K. pesca ("go fish")

• play 'go fish' with cards... I usually had the object and the picture or just the picture of the object
• rules of 'go fish' apply
• "tienes _? (do you have)
• Sí... o pesca

L. Matamoscas (Flyswatter game) 
this is my favorite game of all time

• write vocabulary words on transparency
• divide group into two teams
• each team gets a flyswatter
• one person from each team goes up to the board and stands on opposite sides of the board
• instructor calls out a a word (opposite of the language on the board) and students race to hit it with the flyswatter
• student who hits the word first gets a point for their team
• students get two misses... if they miss twice, the instructor counts backwards from 15... if they do not get the word, no point awarded
• if students do not know the words, their teammates can call out directions in Spanish (which are written on the board)
• really good directions can get another team points as well
• usually students stay up for two different rounds