2010/03/20

The Ultimate Final Lesson

I just had my last lesson at my 2 schools and since I was leaving, I had some extra time, and I really like the schools, I decided to go all out.

The second to last lesson I did a quiz game with questions in 4 categories 'easy', 'medium', difficult', and 'challenge' all color coded white, yellow, blue, and red, respectively.

On a previous lesson before that one, I taught shapes and had each student make their own flag on an A4 piece of paper using shapes and colors.

I then (with some help) copied their flags onto small label stickers and using dollar store poker chips, toothpicks and those things you put under chair legs, I made flags for each student.

Here's a blank flag:



Then I made the game board.



My goal was to make a mountain climbing game where the students draw a card, answer a question and then roll the dice moving up the mountain. Then if they draw an earthquake card, everyone on certain spaces (small areas next to ramps) on the board fall down one level.



I made 4 different sets of cards based on the quiz game (easy, medium, difficult, challenge) and again, color coded them. I used the colors on the game board to indicate which card they had to take. There are multiple paths to the goal (the gold sticker on top) and each path is exactly balanced based on difficulty.

To spice it up I added a rule that says if 2 players land on the same place you can fall from, they have to do rock paper scissors and the loser falls down.

Here's the plan:


The rules are explained on the blackboard:


Finally, after using the game boards, I can take them apart and they stack and fit into my bag to carry to the next school.



It was a lot of work, but very rewarding. I'll leave one board at each school for each class that played and there's one left over for me.