As always, the credit goes to taysteacingtoolkit.com for this amazing PowerPoint presentation!
I changed the original rules quite a bit after the first time through to make things more exciting/suitable for my students! Here is the gist of how you play:
1) Separate the students into 8 teams. Technically, there's 4 large teams, but they are split into 8 groups to get more kids to participate. I laminated cards for each team and gave them out randomly. (In my smaller special ed classes with only 2-12 students, I let them janken and then choose which team they preferred. Also, in my special ed classes so far there has only been 4 teams, (one of each color) or two teams (the red and blue team) depending on the class. My one class only has two students, hence only having two teams.)
2) Each group gets a white board, marker, and eraser. Team by team, they choose a letter from A-Z in order for a question to appear.
3) Every team answers the question. They have 40 seconds to answer. If the question is a bit hard, I'll give them another 40 seconds.
4) After they finish answering, the JTE pics a number card randomly from my hands. (I made and laminated number cards 1-8 for the 8 different groups). That group will show their answer to the JTE and I. If they are right, they get to choose another team to battle. If they are wrong, the JTE picks another number card until somebody gets it right! The JTE and I would have fun with this too. When a group showed us an answer, we would look at each other silently and dramatically before yelling "NOOOOOOO" or "YESSSSS" and the kids would laugh every time. My JTE is really funny and that was his spin on it. If you have a JTE that would be willing to be wacky like this, I highly recommend!
5) The team that answered correctly chooses another team (normally by their color; red, blue, yellow, or green) to battle in janken. Before the game starts, I normally have the kids think in their groups who they would like to do janken so that we're not waiting forever for them to choose in the moment. Though if they choose to switch it up each round they can as long as it's not a time killer!
The battling takes place on a map! Once you see the PowerPoint it will all make a lot more sense, I swear lol
For example: The red team wins and wants to battle the green team. One person from the red team and one from the green team stand up to janken. If the red team wins, then they are able to take one of the green team's pieces of land on the map. If they lose, then the green team can take one of the red team's pieces of land! You can change the color of each piece of land by clicking on it to cycle through the colors. (In smaller classes, I let the student come up to the board and touch which piece of land they want to take. In the bigger classes, I just pick myself. Normally starting with the biggest piece and working to the smallest because the kids find it the most entertaining that way).
6) The team with the most land at the end of the game wins! (Each team starts off with 5 pieces of land (or in case of only two teams, 10 pieces of land). I make sure to tell the students that to win, they must have more pieces of land, not just what looks bigger.)
*Side Notes: - In the original game, the students start out with no land and have to expand. They can also only fight for the pieces of land that were directly surrounding theirs. While this was a cool concept, my students preferred seeing an already filled out map with all of their colors. I tried the grey map once and my students got confused.
- In the original, it was also a rule that the fastest team to answer correctly got to attack while the second fastest team was safe from an attack. When I tried this the first time, some of my slower students just gave up completely, while the others were running around like crazy trying to show me their answer first.
- While I made these changes, I'm not saying my version is better! I think the original version is also awesome and tons of fun! However, I feel like the original version would work better in a smaller class, while my classes normally consist of 35 rowdy and low level students which made things way to confusing and hectic for everyone. Here's the link to the original version if you'd prefer that: https://www.taysteachingtoolkit.com/games/avatar%3A-nation-domination
This was different from my normal English review games and the kids absolutely loved it! I normally do games with bonus point rounds that have cute or interesting animations, but it seems like a janken game is always the number one winner with students. It was not only fun for the students, but also entertaining for my JTEs and I watching the intense games of janken!
My 二年生 who are always half-bored no matter what I do all told me that this was their favorite game and that they want to play it again for their next English review, with different questions of course!
I made a version for my 二年生 and my special ed 二年生 and 三年生 so far! I plan to use this game in two weeks with my 一年生 and 三年生 so when I make those versions I'll add them here!
I hope you all enjoy and let me know if you have any questions! :D
I really like the modifications you made for the game. My students are easily distracted and are quite low-level as well, so I'm looking forward to playing with your changes!
@thenamelessone Thanks so much! My students are the same way, but it went well so I hope your students enjoy and have fun! :D
So, does only one group answer a question at a time when you pull a card? For example, you pull red and they choose to fight green...then the rest of the groups don't get a chance? Or you just use the cards to decide the order in which you check the groups and they all get a chance unless they're wrong?
@Hotokeki So when a group chooses a question, each team has the 40 seconds to answer. After that, a number card is picked and that group can show their answer for a chance to attack. If they're wrong, my JTE picks another group randomly. However, after a team is picked, I put that number card to the side and keep doing that for all the cards until each team has gotten a chance to answer once (this could take all 8 questions or only 1 to 3 to 4 questions if you put some challenging questions in there). Then once each group has gotten a chance to answer once, I shuffle all the cards again and we start from the top.
I found that this worked because we had some questions where students had to put a sentence in order and I made them a little tough so all student groups would work hard at answering in case the teams before them weren't able to answer and they have a chance to steal).
I hope this makes sense! Let me know if you have any more questions!
I understand better now! thanks for the explanation and for making all those questions! My kids love this game!
@hotokeki No problem! I'm glad they love it! :D