Stations: Games

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Analogy Feud

Skill Focus: Word Relationships and Analogies

Objective:  Students will determine and complete analogous relationships.

Procedure:  This station will be set up with a Family Feud style game board and an envelope with category cards. The category cards will have an analogy on the front, and the top answers on the back. The game board answers will be numbered, and correlate with the numbers on the card. One team member will serve as the “caller”, and he/she will select the category card and read off the analogy. The other team members will take turns guessing the possible answers that complete the analogy. The “caller” will reveal answers when students get them correct, and keep track of points on an index card.

Go Fish

Skill Focus: Identifying Parts of Speech

Objective: Students practice determining parts of speech in context.

Procedure: This station contains a card game in the style of traditional Go Fish. There will be a deck of index cards with one sentence written on each. The sentences will have an underlined part of speech. Students will play Go Fish, but instead of asking for cards based on suit, students will ask for cards based on part of speech. Players must determine the part of speech on their card. The student with the most cards at the end of the game wins! Winners name and is turned in on the index card to an envelope taped on the desk.

Bingo Bash

Skill Focus: Identifying and Distinguishing Literary Devices and Narrative Elements

Objective:  Students will identify literary devices, figurative language, and plot elements based on clues.

Procedure:  Students will work cooperatively to play a literary version of Bingo. Cards will be printed on cardstock and available at the station. One student will serve as the designated "caller" and will call off the clues sheet. 

Bingo Bash Directions

Bingo Definitions (Clues)

Bingo Word List

Bingo Cards

Taboo

Skill Focus: Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions

Objective:  Make inferences and draw conclusions based on implicit information.

Procedure:  This station will contain two bags with Taboo cards and a pad for scorekeeping. Students will divide into two teams and play Taboo with the given cards. *The game is played by getting their teammate to guess the word on the card without using the words on the list. They will turn their score sheets into the envelope.

Taboo Directions

Cryptogram (Whiteboard/Chalk board)

Skill Focus: Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions

Objective:  Make inferences based on explicit and implied information.

Procedure:  Students will work cooperatively to solve a word puzzle in the form of a cryptogram. (Envelopes with handouts/answers can be taped on white/chalk board).

This website will help beginners with Cryptograms. It also shows the value of using sentence structure, prefixes, suffixes, and contractions to solve these puzzles. 

Cryptogram Directions

Sensory Images Bags

Skill Focus: Imagery, Figurative Language

Objective: Describe an item using imagery that appeals to each of the five senses.

Procedure: This station will house several paper bags with small items in each. Students will discreetly observe their object (without showing it to the group members), then fill out a half-sheet chart with a description using each of the five senses. For advanced students, there will be an additional column in which students write figurative language sentences to describe their item. They will go around the group trying to get the other members to guess their object using their descriptions. Students can ask follow-up questions until they are able to identify the item. 

Sensory Images Handout and Directions

Affix Bingo

Skill Focus: Word Part Meanings
Objective: Students will practice identifying roots and affixes.

Procedure: This station requires small Bingo-style cards with roots and affixes. One student will be the “caller,” and each of the other students will have a card. The “caller” reads off meanings of roots and affixes from a printed stack of cards. Students will cover the correct root and affix with small squares of paper. Evidence for learning can be demonstrated in two ways: (1) Students call “Bingo” when they get five covered words in a row, and the “caller” checks their words against the card meanings. Winners are written down on an index card and turned into the bag/envelope. (2)At the “one minute countdown” the “caller” will read off answers and students playing check their answers. On an index card, the students will write down how many called word parts each student got correct.

Dice Roll

Skill Focus: Figurative Language and Literary Devices

Objective: Students will create figurative language examples with given criteria.

Procedure:  There will be two oversized six-sided dice at this station. Students will roll each dice; one revealing a figurative language term, and the other with a topic. Students will take turns rolling the dice. On the handout, students have three columns:  one for each result of the dice and one space to write their original figurative language example.


Fact and Opinion Toss
Skill Focus: Fact and Opinion
Objective: Students distinguish between facts and opinions.

Procedure:  This station will not require a table or desks. There will be two large coffee cans at each end of this station, several feet apart. One of each cans on either side will be labeled “fact” and “opinion.” Students on one side read statements from a stack of cards, and members the opposing team throw a small bean bag (or ball) into the can with the appropriate label.  Score will be recorded and turned in.

Giant Jenga 
Skill Focus: (Trivia/Recall)

Objective: (Trivia/Recall)

Procedure: At this station, you will have a tower constructed of cereal boxes and small plastic cups. You can incorporate any type of trivia questions or recall (fact and opinion, main idea, figurative language, narrative elements, etc.). The tower is set up on a table or desk. Students take turns drawing questions. If they get it right, they pull a cup (trying not to make the tower fall). Students are given one point for getting the question correct, and they are awarded an additional point for each cup they have collected. When the tower finally does fall, students add up the points. They write the winning team on their index card and turn it into the envelope at the station.