Friday Game Day

Hello again :)

I've just finished my two days back at school. We go back for the Thursday and Friday before the kiddies start back - they are always such busy days, filled with meetings, planning, setting up classrooms etc... I know you know what its' like!

For today's Friday Game Day game, I thought I'd share' Pass the ball'. This game is great for practicing skip counting, or simply counting by ones and catches kids interest as there is a ball throwing involved!

Pass the Ball

Students stand in a circle, with one person holding a ball. They start by saying ‘Zero’. They then throw the ball to another class member, who, upon catching the ball says ‘Two’. They then throw the ball to another student and the skip counting continues until a person gets the number wrong. The counting then starts again from zero. Alternatively, you can have the person who said the wrong number to sit down, with the game then continuing until there is only one person standing (this can make for a very long game though!)

As you might have guessed from my previous posts, I like easy to set up games that can be easily differentiated - this game fits that bill to a tee! It is takes 30 seconds to grab a ball and get the class in a circle (or as we say to be mathematically correct, make a perimeter around the mat!). It's great to play when you've got a spare five or ten minutes at the end of the day too. 

This game can be modified to practice a wide range of maths knowledge. Instead of counting by twos, you could count by ones, threes, fours etc, say the days of the week/months of the year,  count backwards or start counting by 10 off the decade, or a combination (counting backwards by twos etc)

Let me know how you go if you give it a try with your class!