Today we were going over addition (again) in Math.  I have the slightly higher group of students that found this quite boring…yesterday.  So, I threw my plans out the window (yay for being flexible) and we played a game instead.  This game is quite simple, and of course adapted from another teacher.

I call it the Wipe-Board game.  Everyone in the class has a wipe-board, marker, and eraser.  I put them into teams of 2 and 3.  Then, I put a problem on the board that they must solve as a team.  Everyone is doing it on their own wipe-board because they don’t know whom I will tell to bring their board to the front for inspection.  Once everyone is done, and I’ve selected people to come up (i.e. the person whose first name is closest to A), then I have one of the students help me solve the problem on the board, and systematically check their wipe-boards for the correct answer and for neatness.  Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and I swear they don’t even realize they’re doing math work!

Of course, at the end, they always want to know who won, and I tell them we’re all winners (or something corny like that).