No Prep Required: Crayon War

Through email, I received a packet of games from Jean Pacheco.  She included the game Crayon War.  It is a good vocabulary review game that takes minimal time to prep.  It is also one of my students’ favorite games.  It is a variation of Flyswatter.  I have to say- I NEVER play flyswatter.  I have small classes, and I still do not play it.  Students spend half of the time waiting for their turn instead of actually paying attention.

Crayon War is really simple.  You write down all of the vocabulary words on a piece of paper.    I copy enough for every other student.  I only allow pairs for this game.  I call the word in English, or you can give hints about it in the target language.  The students race to circle the correct word.  The student who circles it correctly gets a point.

However, I always have to give caveats to prevent this from getting out of control.  The piece of paper has to stay in the middle of the table.  If someone “steals” the paper or obviously blocks their partner, the stealer/blocker loses the point.  Also, they can change their mind about the word, but they cannot circle every single word.  I have extra copies in case this happens.  Also, if students constantly do the following things, I tell them that they can just write the answer on a piece of paper by themselves.  Hope you can use this in the upcoming year!