In order to facilitate their emotional vocabulary learning, I developed the game How Do You Feel? This simple cover up game is a fun introduction and practice activity for nine emotions. I explained cover up games in a previous blog post, but I'll give you a brief review. In short, the goal of the game is to cover up a certain number of spaces on your game board before your opponent can do the same. Sometimes I have students play this game tic-tac-toe style (cover three in a row). Sometimes I require the four corners. Other times I tell them they have to completely cover their board to win. Mostly it depends on how much time we have to play which version I choose.
To play How Do You Feel? the first player will either spin the emotions spinner (paper version) or use the specially scripted emotion generator (digital version). Either way, the student will be given a specific emotion to find on his/her game board. The student then locates the emoji representing the given emotion, and gives an example of a time he/she might feel that emotion (i.e.: I feel tired when I stay up late watching soccer.). If the sentence is correct, the student is able to cover that emoji (I use milk jug lids for the paper version and there are X's provided for the digital version). Player two then takes a turn. If, in subsequent turns, players spin or generate an emotion that is already covered, the turn is forfeited. The first player to cover the agreed upon amount of spaces is the winner. As mentioned above, I explained how to make digital cover up games in a previous blog post. This digital game does have a specially scripted menu item though for generating the emotions. Here's a video to show you what that menu looks like and how to play the game: One last thing before I go, the script from this game is not available for separate purchase, it's too specific, but other scripts for making your own digital games are available. Each of the scripts comes with a video showing you exactly how to install and use it. You can use the buttons below to get either version of this game, or any of the various scripts available, for yourself. Happy teaching everyone!
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Cool, right? And they were extremely easy to make. This is possible in both Excel and Sheets, but I find it a little easier to complete in Sheets because there are fewer options. The good news is that Sheets can be downloaded as Excel (click File, Download, Microsoft Excel) and all of the formatting stays in place. These directions will be for Sheets. The first thing I did was rename the first tab as "Directions." To rename a tab:
After the directions are finished it's time to add the question, answer, and grade tabs. I recommend that you add the answer tab first and you update it as you go. To add a tab click the + sign in the bottom left corner. Change the name to "Answers" using the above steps. I chose to label column A as "Question," so I could easily see which question the answer corresponded to, and I went ahead and numbered down column A (type 1 into cell A2, grab the bottom right corner of the blue outline around the cell and pull down, the numbering will be done automatically). Column B I labeled "Answer." Going back to my directions tab, I again clicked the + button and renamed this newest tab "1" for question one. On the question tabs you are going to include whatever you would normally place on a task card. I chose to include a picture (click Insert, Image, Over Cells) and the sentence that I wanted them to complete. One thing you do need to be sure and include though is an easily identifiable place for them to type their answer. You need to know exactly where the answer will be typed in order for the conditional formatting to work. I took care of this problem by choosing a cell, resizing it (not necessary but I wanted it to be large and not easily missed), and coloring it tan. Now that your first task card is set up, it's time to make the magic happen on the answer sheet.
To create the next task card you could start from scratch, but I recommend copying and pasting to save yourself a little setup work.
Only a few things remain to be done. The first step is to finish the auto-grading feature.
This next part is totally optional but I wanted it because I sometimes use task cards as an assessment. The Answers tab will now clearly show which questions are correct and which are incorrect. This is great if I want students to be able to go back and correct their work, but what if I don't want to make it obvious which questions are right or wrong, and I still want them to know their final score? My solution was a grade tab. From the Answers tab create a new tab by clicking the + sign in the bottom left corner. Rename the new tab "Grade." I then inserted a picture (just for fun) and an encouraging message. I then chose a cell and typed "Number Correct" (cell H4 in my example). In the next cell over (cell I4 on my sheet) I told it to automatically populate from the Answers sheet.
The final step is to hide the Answers tab so they don't have access to which specific questions are correct or incorrect (this step is optional but good if you want to use the cards as an assessment). To hide a tab:
That's it, you now have a complete set of self-grading digital task cards. To use them you will need to make a copy of the document for each student and give them editing rights (be sure you've deleted any answers you typed on the question tabs as you tested things out). The best way of doing this will depend on your learning management system. To do this on Blackboard I create a Force a Copy link and post the link in my assignment. In Google Classroom you can just put the link into classroom and choose "make a copy for each student." The important thing is that each student have his or her own copy of the cards. This truly is my new favorite way to do task cards. I like it so much that I'm planning to go back and recreate some of my other task cards (the ones where students move circles to indicate their choice and I have to check each slide individually) using this method. I hope you find it helpful as well, happy teaching!
Now that you have all of your slides set up as images/backgrounds, it is time to start making the magic happen. The first thing we want to do is make it so students cannot advance slides by clicking anywhere. To do this we are going to link each slide to itself.
Making the slides advance is the next step:
A lot of work, I know, but it really is worth it. The good news is that once you finish creating all of your answer and next question buttons, you are done. Put your slides in present mode and try them out...pretty cool, huh? If you prefer video tutorials, here is a short one: Happy task card creating, everyone! Next week I'll show you how to create self-grading task cards in Sheets/Excel that can be used as an assessment, it's my new favorite digital task card delivery method!
The first part of the process was very similar to other board games I've made. I started by designing the various slides in PowerPoint. In order to make everything fit I like to resize my slides to 17x11 (in PowerPoint click on Design, Slide Size, Custom Slide Size, enter your desired dimensions and cick OK, choose Ensure Fit). This allows me to simply take my already-designed paper game board, save it as an image, and insert it on half the slide. The second half of the slide is where I type instructions for how to play the game. After setting up the game board slide, I then set up a slide for every question. Each question slide includes the sentence prompt and a box called "Game Board." Once all of my slides were designed, I saved them all as images (Save As, choose .jpg or .png, Save, All Slides). In order to have my magic reveal answer I needed to create and save three more images: "too," "enough," and a magnifying glass. For the two text answers (too/enough), I created a text box in PowerPoint, typed the word too, changed the color of the text to be the same as my background, right clicked on it, chose "Save as Image," and saved it. I then repeated the process for enough. The magnifying glass was slightly harder because I am not an artist. I do, however, know of a great source for royalty-free images and clipart, Pixaby. I simply went there, searched for magnifying glass, chose one with a clear background, and saved it to my computer. I was now ready to start setting up my game in Google Slides. First, I needed to upload the game board and sentence slides I designed in PowerPoint and set them as the backgrounds of individual slides. Designing in PowerPoint, saving as images, and setting those images as backgrounds prevents students from accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose) moving, changing, or deleting things you don't want them to. This process of uploading and setting all these images as backgrounds used to be very tedious and time consuming. Then I was introduced to the add-on Slides Toolbox. This add-on allows me to import images and set them as backgrounds on separate slides in about seven or eight clicks, rather than the seven or eight clicks per slide it used to take. After getting all of my backgrounds in place, I needed to make my Game Board button functional. In order to do this, I drew a rectangle over the button on the first question slide, made the rectangle and border clear, and then hyperlinked it (use the link button in the toolbar) to the slide with my game board. I then copied the box and pasted it onto each question slide. The nice thing about this copy and paste method is that the hyperlink is also copied and pasted and Slides automatically pastes it in the same location on ever slide. So I literally copied it, clicked on the next slide, hit ctrl+v, and clicked the next slide to repeat the process. The entire operation only took me about 30 seconds. It was now time for the part I'd been waiting for: creating the magic reveal. Starting with the first question slide, I inserted the image for the correct answer (too or enough). I then positioned the image over the black line, making sure no part of it covered anything black. Because the word is typed in the same color as the background it became invisible. I then inserted the magnifying glass image that I'd previously saved and set it to go to the back (right click on it, choose "send to back," or click on it and click alt+shift+b). By sending the magnifying glass to the back I told the program that any time it's sharing space with another object on the screen the other object should be on top. In other words, when I drag the magnifying glass over the answer line, the word on the line is put on top, the magnifying glass is put on the bottom, and the word becomes visible because something that is a different color is between it and the background. Very cool! I then went to each question slide and repeated the steps:
The last big task I had to complete was adding the game play script that my husband wrote for me. This script adds a menu item to the top that says "Game Play." Under that menu are additional menus that say "Draw Card" and "Roll Dice." The "Draw Card" menu will randomly jump a player to one of the question cards (similar to drawing a card from the top of a pile). The "Roll Dice" menu will produce a pop up window that says, "You rolled a __," and give a randomly generated number between one and six. This script (as well as others) is available in my store and includes a video giving step-by-step instructions on how to install and use it. All that was left to do now was create the pieces for my students to move. On the game board slide I made a circle, copied it, pasted it three times, recolored them to be four different colors, arranged them where I wanted them, and I was finished. Just a couple of quick tips/reminders for using them in your classroom:
Digital board games take a little bit of work to create (though it is getting easier as I go and learn new tricks, such as Slides Toolbox) and set up, but I really think it's worth it. My students always respond so positively to games and I was very frustrated last semester when I couldn't use them. Now that I have learned how to do all of these cool things I can't wait for on-line instruction this fall!
of the games that I've made using these methods and give you a template with a macro-enabled button for "rolling" a number cube.
First, let me give you a look at how the game is played:
For most of the creation process the steps are the same in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. When creating the activity I started by typing out the directions for students. I wanted it to be very clear how to play the game. I then created color-coded recording spaces for students to keep track of the game rounds (we used to use a white board for this). This was nothing more complicated than selecting the cells I wanted them to use for each purpose, filling the cells with a particular color, and then labeling the group. The real fun came when I started creating the fishing hole and the catch basket. The fishing hole was simple, I simply selected a group of cells, colored them blue, and set the text to be white and centered. The magic started with the catch basket. I used a random number generator (Google) to get 12 numbers between -20 and +20. I typed one number into each cell, selected the cells, made the text a dark brown, and then colored the cells a dark brown. This essentially made the numbers invisible. My next step was to enter the conditional formatting. I described how to do this in detail in my blog post about mystery picture activities (there's even a video). Just as a quick reminder, here are the steps to conditionally format cells based on the contents of another cell:
The magic continued with the addition of the Catch Goal and Number of Casts buttons, but this is where I needed my husband (a software engineer) to help me. I do not program and to create the activities two different programming languages were required. Sheets required JavaScript and Excel required VBA. All I did in this process was to insert an image and label it, from there the expert took over. He inserted a script for Sheets and a macro for Excel. I'll spare you the long explanation of how he made it all work (because I don't understand it). The good news is that he did and says it wasn't difficult (so if you do know how to program you could do it yourself). The final result was the game that you saw demonstrated above. The demonstration video was made with the Google Sheets version, but the play is the same with the Excel version. The Google Sheets version is for sale in my Teachers pay Teachers store, but the frustration of being a Microsoft school continues for all. It turns out that macro-enabled files are not supported on the TpT platform and I was unable to upload the Excel version. But the GOOD news is that since the game was already made, I decided to use my blog to disseminate it--for free! And, because I feel the pain of not always being able to use Google Apps, I included a template as well. The template includes the macro-enabled dice roll button. To use it simply open the file, do a "save as" so you don't mess up your template, and design your game. The Roll button will randomly generate numbers between one and six, just like a number cube. I hope you and your students enjoy the game as much as I and mine have. Happy gaming, everyone!
The paper version of the game requires a letter die as well as a number die. I know from experience how easily students get distracted and confused when they have to utilize multiple sites and/or tabs, so I wanted them to be able to "roll" the dice without ever leaving the Google Slide deck the game was built in. Fortunately I am married to a full stack software architect and he came to my rescue. My wonderful husband programmed an extra menu item into Google Slides that includes both an alphabet and a numerical die that students can "roll" by simply clicking. The script I used in this game is available in my TpT store (along with others), simply use the buttons below to purchase your own copy. Each has a how-to-install video linked in the description of the product. OK, back to the game...
When I make games in Google Slides I always design the non-moving parts in PowerPoint, save them as an image, and upload them as backgrounds. As I've shared in the past, this prevents students from accidentally (or not-so-accidentally) deleting or changing the directions, questions, or other content. This game was no exception, and I started by recoloring my paper-based game board and saving it as an image. I then opened PowerPoint, resized my slide to be 17x11 (allowing me space to put the game board and directions on the same slide), and inserted the image. Next to the game board I added the directions so students will be able to refer to them as needed. After saving everything as images (click on "save as" and change the file type to .jpg or .png), I opened a new Google Slides file, changed the slide size (File, Page Setup), and inserted my saved images as the background on each slide. The object of the game is to be the first player to reach finish. In order to advance, students must first obtain a letter (by rolling the alphabet die), naming a noun that starts with the given letter, an adjective to describe the noun, and use both the adjective & noun in a sentence. If the sentence is grammatically correct, the student then rolls the numerical die and moves his/her piece. An extra space can be earned (turning a roll of 4 into 5) by using alliteration (ie: The dangerous dog was contained behind a fence.). Here's a short video showing how to play the digital version: Two important things to remember when using the digital version of this game: the slide deck must remain in editing mode and you must make a copy (with editing rights) for each group. Students will not be able to access the extra menu where the dice are, or move their playing pieces, if the game is placed into present mode. Each group will need its own copy of the game (they'll share the file and manipulate it from their different locations), with editing rights, in order to play as well. The game play (dice) menu will automatically load in each copy, you will not need to do anything special, though students may have to wait an extra 10-15 seconds for the menu to fully load before beginning. That seems like such a short time to wait, but I'm always amazed at how little patience students have when waiting for things to load, so be prepared to remind them. My students have always loved the paper version of this game and I can't wait to play the digital one with them. One last tip: at times I've wanted to have a record of how my students used adjectives, so I instructed them to write down the sentences they used on a piece of paper. If needed you can obtain this same type of record with the digital version. Simply have the student right click on the space where his/her piece is sitting, choose "comment," type out the sentence, and click "Comment." This will allow you to see who said what at a later date. Happy gaming, everyone!
At the most basic level, English Skillology is a choice menu. It includes four activities for each of the five skill areas in ESL: reading, writing, speaking, listening, and grammar. Inspired by a Monopoly-style choice menu of someone else's, I decided to use a game board format for my own. Each skill is a side (grammar is in the corners), and has its own color. Students are then free to choose the number and type of activities they want to complete by the end of the semester. If a student were to complete all of the activities, he/she would earn 120 extra credit points.
I designed this particular board for my high intermediate students (I hope to create at least three more boards, one for each of the proficiency levels I teach.). In creating the activities I consulted two different sets of objectives: seventh grade Common Core ELA and the Core Competencies for my department at the college where I teach. Here's a quick overview of the 20 activities: Reading
So how did I create this extra credit menu? In the most general terms, here are the steps I took:
I'm really excited about this particular project. It was a lot of work to put together but I believe it will be very valuable for my students. I especially like how it allows them to earn extra credit by participating in meaningful learning activities. Don't forget to download your own copy of English Skillology from Teachers Pay Teachers today--it's free! |
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