A part of the “Evergrowing Together” Series – where teachers share their tips to help other teachers grow!
By Rikki Frank, 3rd grade teacher at Bnos Menachem
Review time doesn’t have to be repetitive or stressful! These Chumash games help students internalize vocabulary while having fun, and they require almost no prep once your flashcards are ready. At the start of the year, I prepared 240 index cards with our Milim / Shorashim on them. I keep them in a box in my class and I can easily pull them out for any of these games.
1) Multi-Player Pictionary: Choose 20-25 words (can do more or less) and stick them on the top half of the board with magnets (click here for an easy link to board magnets). Divide the bottom of your board into 3 or 4 sections. Call up 3-4 students who look at all cards on the board and choose one to draw. (I personally tell them to whisper to each other which one they are doing so all 4 students are doing a different word). Set a timer for 1 min for them to draw. The class then guesses which words they drew. Remove those cards, replace with 4 new ones and call 4 more players. Having 4 students at a time gives more students a turn and more words reviewed.
2) Find the Milim: Choose a picture from a children’s book that has many words from the words you want to review. If you have a smart board, you can show it there. If you don’t, you can give every child a photocopy of the page. Put a timer on for however long you decide, for about 3 – 5 minutes. Each student lists Milim she recognizes in the picture. This is a bit harder because they need to recall the word in Hebrew not just know the translation when they hear it. When time’s up, students share the words they found. As each word is said, whoever has that word crosses it off so it is not repeated. See how many words the class was able to find. When I did this with my class, they had so many words we didn’t even have enough time to finish hearing them all. Just to give you an example, there was a picture of a boy and they included all these words just for that one part – פנים / רגל / יד / עין / זכר / אדם / נפש / איש / בן.
3) Reverse Pictionary: Tell the class you’re going to draw a scene on the board. Pick one student to come up and draw anything there. Let’s say she draws a house. The next student comes up and adds something to the scene, for example grass. Another student adds a tree. Once the scene is complete, challenge them to identify as many Milim from their list as they can.
4) Freeze and Switch: This is a twist on the game ‘Freeze and Justify.. Take about 20 – 30 flashcards and stick them on the board. Call 2 students up to act and give them one word, for example אש – they start acting incorporating that word. While they are acting, choose a student to be the ‘freezer.’ Whenever she wants, she calls out freeze and another word from the board. The students immediately have to continue acting using that new word. Choose a new “freezer” and continue. After 4-5 words, pick 2 new actors and play again. After each round, remove the words used and replace them with new ones.
5) Partner Switch: This one is a great way to review lots of words in a short amount of time. For this one I personally use cards that have the Hebrew on one side and the English / picture on the back. (If neither partner knows the answer, they can ask you before moving on.) Give every student a few cards – I have done anywhere from 2 – 5, depending on how many words we were reviewing and how many students I had. Once everyone has their cards, they get up and walk around and find a partner who isn’t speaking with someone. Student A shows student B their cards to test them. If student B isn’t sure, student A will tell Student B the answer. After they each show their cards and test each other, they switch cards and then each go off to find another partner. It’s a good way to drill the vocabulary and incorporate movement.
6) Build a Sentence: Pick 20 words to put on the board facing backwards so the words are not seen. Call one student to come up and turn around 3 cards. Choose someone to make a sentence in English using those 3 words. Replace those words with new cards and call another student to come up.
7) Reverse Charades: For this one I use only the cards with Shorashim on them. Stick 20-30 on the board. Choose 1 student to go out of the classroom. Another student chooses which Shoresh that student will have to guess. When the student comes back in, everyone silently acts out the Shoresh, while the student looks at the board to figure out which one they are acting.
8) Five Below: This one is good for small groups, such as centers. Spread out about 20 cards on the desks or floor. A student chooses a word in their head and tries to get the other students to guess their word using 5 words or less to describe it.
9) The Word Drop: This one is also good for small groups. Using a mini poster, or even 2 papers stuck together, draw a chart with different words written in each box. Each student is given 8-10 small items to drop onto the board (pennies, winkies, mini lentils) They go around the group with each student dropping one of their items onto the board. Whichever word it lands on she needs to translate. If the student knows the translation, they can keep it. If they don’t know it, the other students tell them what it is and the item remains on that spot. At the end of the game (after all the students dropped all their items) any student who had one or more of theirs still on the board can now get back their little item if they now remember what the word meant.
I hope these games help you,
Morah Frank
View comments
+ Leave a comment