Teacher's Corner

Edited By Tom Vasel and WEM

School-related articles for teachers and others working in education that explain how they can use board games in the classroom. Giles Pritchard also talks about using games in education in the On Board Games podcast, starting with #18.

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Headlines

April 4, 2007 - Teacher’s Corner: An Overview of Modern Games and How to Use Them in School
May 12, 2006 - Teachers Corner: The Mouse Maze Game
March 3, 2006 - Teacher’s Corner: Learning Math with Hare & Tortoise
March 2, 2006 - Teacher’s Corner: Playing Boardgames is the Key to Learning for Young Children
January 27, 2006 - Teachers Corner: Get a Life (and a House)
January 2, 2006 - Teacher’s Corner: Teaching games to Elementary Students
December 7, 2005 - Teacher’s Corner: Writing Across the Curriculum and Boardgaming
December 7, 2005 - Teacher’s Corner: “5 & 10”, a game designed for use in the classroom
December 7, 2005 - Teacher’s Corner: GAAME

Articles

Teacher’s Corner: An Overview of Modern Games and How to Use Them in School

By Giles Pritchard
April 4, 2007

What are modern board games?
If you ask someone off the street to name ten board games, invariably you will hear titles like Monopoly, Jenga, The Game of Life, Risk, and so on. Many of these games were designed decades ago. Monopoly, for example, was first published by Parker Brothers in 1935 based on a game presented by Charles Darrow—and there is much evidence to support that the game existed in various forms for many years prior to Mr. Darrow bringing it to Parker Brothers.

Posted by W. Eric Martin on April 4, 2007 at 08:00 AM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (3) - Link

Teachers Corner: The Mouse Maze Game

by Kristie Donohue
May 12, 2006

Steve and Kristie Donohue have submitted a game for teachers to download! Here’s what Steve has to say about the game…

“The mouse maze game is designed to help students grasp the concepts of left, right, faster, and slower. This is part of a direct requirement in the science curriculum for first grade students (typically 6 year olds) in Michigan, USA. It also provides additional practice in a mathematics requirement that they be able to make and record tallies (the typical 4 lines, then a diagonal line to show 5). There are also elements of another science curriculum requirement that students understand cause and effect. By using the cards they can cause the mouse to take different actions and moving it shows the effect of those actions.”

Posted by Tom Vasel on May 12, 2006 at 08:50 PM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (0) - Link

Teacher’s Corner: Learning Math with Hare & Tortoise

By Jeff Au
March 3, 2006

Some of you by now might be all eager to whip out the next boardgame and play with your children. But wait…. which boardgame should you play?

Let us look at a very good Euro game – Hare & Tortoise - that is very suitable for young children and covers most of the learning objectives outlined in my introductory article “Boardgames Key to Learning”. For any children that are mathematically-challenged, play this game, offer some good incentives for winning and you can bet they’ll start taking their maths seriously.

Posted by Rick Thornquist on March 3, 2006 at 07:00 PM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (1) - Link

Teacher’s Corner: Playing Boardgames is the Key to Learning for Young Children

By Jeff Au
March 2, 2006

Boardgames are great for spending some family time together. The real value from a parent’s perspective in playing boardgames is when you can find games that everyone in the family can enjoy together and yet provide good learning objectives for the younger ones.

Not our grandfathers’ boardgames

When we mention “boardgames”, games like Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, Careers and even Chess cross our mind. Yes there is the Snakes & Ladders game too. These are indeed boardgames but playing these boardgames nowadays is like peddling a trishaw instead of driving a car. A trishaw can still get you where a 1.6 Proton takes you but the experience of the journey is so much different.

Posted by Rick Thornquist on March 2, 2006 at 07:30 PM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (0) - Link

Teachers Corner: Get a Life (and a House)

By Jay Bloodworth
January 27, 2006

I teach math to seventh and eighth grade students in a middle school. For the past few years I have done an activity on home buying as a part of my lesson on exponential growth and compound interest. It worked like this: The students were randomly assigned a career and appropriate salary for themselves and their spouse. Using these figures, they computed what house payment they could afford as a percentage of their combined monthly income. They then looked through real estate magazines to choose a house they wanted, and used a financial application on a graphing calculator to determine the monthly mortgage payment and whether or not they could afford it.

Posted by Tom Vasel on January 27, 2006 at 05:59 PM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (1) - Link

Teacher’s Corner: Teaching games to Elementary Students

By Dennis Ku
January 2, 2005

As an educator of young children – I’ve taught children between the ages of 6 and 10 over the past 5 years – it’s always imperative to keep the youngsters interested in whatever their learning. Think back to when you were in elementary school: you probably remember most days being filled with repetitive math exercises, copying notes from the board and working your way through novels and answering stock questions, like “Retell the story in your own words�?. Fortunately, the education system (at least here in Canada!) has made some progress, and fun is now encouraged.

Posted by Tom Vasel on January 2, 2006 at 02:30 AM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (0) - Link

Teacher’s Corner: Writing Across the Curriculum and Boardgaming

By Roderick A. Hurley
December 7, 2005

Whether you teach Social Studies or Mathematics, communication is critical. In mathematics, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics emphasizes communication along with traditional mathematical concepts (http://www.nctm.org/standards/standards.htm). Writing reviews for games is one way to incorporate communication in your classroom.

Posted by Tom Vasel on December 7, 2005 at 02:31 AM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (1) - Link

Teacher’s Corner: “5 & 10”, a game designed for use in the classroom

By John Marc Green
December 7, 2005

“5&10�? is a set-collection and memory game in which 2-4 players compete for cards with which to score victory points for instances of five and ten.

SETUP
1) Take a standard deck of 52 cards; remove the Jokers. 2) Shuffle and place the pile face-down between the players. 3) Turn over the top card: at the end of the game, single cards of that card’s suit will give a player bonus points. 4) Shuffle that card back into the deck, and then deal each player a face-down hand of five cards. The remaining cards form the face-down Draw deck, placed between the players, to one side of the play area.

Posted by Tom Vasel on December 7, 2005 at 02:30 AM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (1) - Link

Teacher’s Corner: GAAME

by Hans Kishel
December 7, 2005

GAAME
Gaining Academic Advancement Masked as Entertainment

The GAAME program addresses LSTA Goal: 1-C, exploring alternative methods of providing activities that support the educational role of libraries.

Posted by Tom Vasel on December 7, 2005 at 02:30 AM in Special Features > Teacher's Corner - Comments (0) - Link

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