Monthly Review = Achievement + Fun
Denise Burson
May 19, 2008
Monthly Review and reinforcement is a proven strategy for helping students retain information and skills students might not use every day. All 90-90 schools have some type of Review Schedule. (See Learning-Focused Notebook: Connecting Strategies and Planning for Learning: How to Review for Achievement). Instead of hurrying through the curriculum and stopping 2-5 weeks out for a state test, distribute the review across the year. Begin this school year with a schedule for review days. Structured Monthly Reviews helps to solidly the essential content, so students can draw on them readily when the state test rolls around. Reviewing doesn't have to be tedious for you and boring for students. Teachers have shared a number of ways to add some excitement to your Review Days. Try livening up your Review Days and reinforcing previous taught curriculum with one of the games below. You will find this in Exemplary Schools!
Friendly Feud
"Friendly Feud" is an adaptation of the Family Feud game show students might see on television. The game is easy to adapt to almost any subject or curriculum topic.
Start the game by arranging students into teams of four or five players. Determine the sequence in which teams will play. Determine the sequence in which the players on each team will play. Have each team select a captain who will act as the team's final-decision maker and spokesperson.
After the teams are organized, prepare to pose the first essential question of the game. Questions are generated from previous Student Learning Maps. In the first round, the captain of each team will be the only one who can answer the question. Read aloud the first question; call on the team captain who raises his/her hand first to answer the question. To earn a point, that captain must correctly answer the question within 10 seconds. If the captain who was called on does not answer the question within the time limit or if he or she gives an incorrect answer, the next team can "steal" the question. Members of that team can talk among themselves, then they must agree on the correct answer. The captain serves as spokesperson for the team. If the captain says the correct answer, his/her team earns the point. If the answer is incorrect, the next team has a chance to steal the question and earn the point, and so on.
The team that correctly answers the question earns the first chance to answer the next question -- which is posed to the second player on the team. An incorrect answer passes the question to the second player on the next team. A correct answer earns another point for the team and the first chance to answer the next question, which is posed to the third player on the team. The team can keep earning points until team members get a wrong answer or do not respond within the time limit.
At the end of the game, the team with the most points is the winner of "Friendly Feud."
Tic-Tac-Toe
Draw a tic-tac-toe grid on a board or chart paper. Choose the questions from the previous taught Student Learning Maps.
Arrange the class into two teams; Xs and Os. Flip a coin to see which team will go first. For example, it the X team wins the toss, pose a question to a student on that team. If the student on the X team answers correctly, he or she places an X on the grid. If the student answers incorrectly, the O team does not automatically get to put an O in that square. To earn an O, a member of the O team must correctly answer the question. If the O player answers correctly, his or her team puts an O in the square and earns the first chance to respond to the next question. If the O team answers the next question correctly, they get to place another O; if the answer is incorrect, the question is posed to the X team.
Keep track of how many games each team wins.
Web Sites that will help you spice up your review:
Funbrain.com
Jeopardy Template http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/ekowalcz/jeopardy/template.htm
