Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Minute to Win It (Part 1 of 5)


I play many games in my classroom. One of the review games I play is called Minute to Win It (M2Wi).  It is perhaps my favorite review game because the kids love it so much. Students are given 60 seconds to complete various challenges just like on the TV show. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will post about many of these M2Wi activities. Some of the activities are directly from the game show.  The way I set up the room is simple, I divide students into 3 teams. Each team sits around the room on 3 sides (the 4th side is where I set up most of my activities the afternoon before).  In the middle of the room are 2 student desks with about 30-40 index cards (a good amount for a 90-minute class) that indicate a M2Wi activity.  Some of the activities require the whole team to participate, some require just a partner from the team, and some are done alone. The option for team activities is helpful for your students who may not be interested in standing in the spotlight and having all eyes on them.





Teams will take turns sending 1 student up to pick an activity. There are many ways to choose a student to begin the game. I've used methods such as random generators and calling on a well-behaved student.  Once the first player for the first team selects his option, I explain in 20 seconds or less how to play the activity.  Once I explain the activity and I ask if the participant(s) has any question, I end with "you have a minute to win it, go" and start the online stopwatch timer on my SmartBoard.  At times, I have kept score. The way I do it is by adding up the amount of time left on the clock when a challenge is accomplished. Many times, there will be rounds in which no team is awarded points because no challenge was completed.





So, what exactly are these challenges or activities I am talking about? Here are just a few. You can expect more to be posted soon.

1. A Bit Dicey:  The student who selects this activity must answer 4 content-related questions correctly and then balance 4 dice vertically on a popsicle/craft stick in their mouth for at least 3 seconds. I always model this one for them and then throw away the popsicle stick. It's harder than it seems! All these questions should be written out ahead of time.

2. Rubber Band-It: The team of the student who selects this activity line up behind a pre-existing line with rubber bands and must shoot at a pyramid of coke cans. At least one of the coke cans will have a question on the back. Once the top can falls, the student who selected the activity must run to the cans and ask the question(s). Depending on the sling shot skill level of the students in your class, you can adjust the number of soda cans in the pyramid and the number of cans that actually have questions taped to the back.


3. Map Instructions: I give the students on the team a box of colored pencils and a blank map with instructions on the bottom. The instructions may say things like "Color Virginia blue," "Label the ocean that surrounds Antarctica," "Draw a lone star on the state that had been an independent republic before it entered the Union," "Draw Mr. Piedra in a canoe with a fishing pole on the Columbia River," "Circle the border states," "Put a compass in the top left corner."  I list about 8-10 steps for my students to complete in 60 seconds. Instead of a map, math teachers could use a blank circle and have students "Write the definition of circumference," "Draw the diameter," "Label the radius," "Shade 1/4 of the circle gray." For Reading, you could have a paragraph and write, "Circle the mistake in the first sentence," "Underline the verb in the third sentence," and many more I ideas I am probably not qualified to suggest.

4. Roll of the Dice: Give the student who selected this activity a dice. The student must roll the dice 4 times in a minute. Each time they roll the dice, they will get a question corresponding to the roll of the dice. For instance, if a student rolls a 6, the question may be "Name 6 states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy." However, if the student rolls a 3, the question may be, "Name 3 colonial advantages that Patriots had during the American Revolution."  Another version of this activity is the 6 to 1 Challenge. In this activity, the student doesn't roll the dice but instead must answer questions with 6 answers ("Name 6..."), then 5 answers ("What 5..."), all the way down to 1 answer. All these questions should be written out ahead of time!

5. Balloon Pop: A student-favorite. In this activity, I set up a bulletin board in my room with a blank map of the United States. I then tack about 5 balloons in various locations on the map.  In order for a student to win this challenge, they must give a fact about any balloon's location and then pick up a sharpened pencil and try to pop that particular balloon from about 8-10 feet away. The facts range from nearby geographic features, to names of the region/state, type of climate, Indians that live there, historical events that occurred there, etc.  They have 60 seconds to pop one balloon.  They can give as many facts for as many balloons as they need to in order to be successful. They get one toss per fact provided.  WARNING: Keep other students far away from the board so that they don't feel the effects of a poor ricochet.  For math teachers, put fractions, percents, shapes, angles, etc on your bulletin board. For Science, you could put phases of the moon. For Reading/Writing, you could put vocabulary words or stems.  I have seen students pop the balloon with 58 seconds still on the clock and also right before the time runs out.

Nothing like a good buzzer beater...

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