admeurotrucksimula

Oct 22, 20176 min read

Seasonal PowerPoint Games

Since tekhnologic was started, various seasonal themed PowerPoint games have been created.

I have put together 4 seasonal PowerPoint games and activities as part of the collections series. If you are a regular reader you will be familiar with them all. If you read my blog from time to time, there may be a few games you haven’t come across, and if this is the first time you have read my blog, all these games will be new to you. I hope you will come back and continue to read tekhnologic.

This activity is to encourage speaking, give compliments and hopefully make everyone feel good about themselves.

Lucky Dip is an activity I created in 2015 based on a Japanese TV segment called Tanakuji.

The idea is that several pictures of text flash across the television screen and the audience is asked to take a photo. When you take a photo you see an image of text. The text is usually a message, words of wisdom or your fortune for the week.

I thought it would be fantastic to have a classroom adaptation of activity.

Download one of the following templates:

Lucky Dip Demo – Numbers

Lucky Dip – Conversation Topics

Lucky Dip – Valentine’s Day Version

There are two ways you can use Lucky Dip.

The first way is to get the students to use their mobile phones.

Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4 students. Ask 1 student from each group to come towards the screen of the device running the PowerPoint. (IWB, Projector Screen, Computer Screen, iPAD)

Tell the students to get their cameras ready. Start the slide show and the students take a photograph when they are ready.

The students go back to their groups and read the text from their photograph. The other students in the group write down the compliment.

Repeat as often as it needed.

You could try setting the students a challenge to collect 5 compliments or as many compliments as they can within a time limit.

Press ESC to end the slide show.

ADVICE: Pause the PowerPoint so students aren’t look at fast moving images for a long time.

Press S to pause the slide show. Press S to resume the slide show. Press B to pause the slide show and a black screen appears. Press any key to resume the slide show. Press W to pause the slide show and a white screen appears. Press any key to resume the slide show.

The second way is a matching exercise.

Before the class starts, place the compliments around the room. You can hide them a little to make it more challenging.

Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4 students. Ask 1 student to stand up from each group.

Start the slide show and ask the students to say ‘stop.’

Press S to pause the PowerPoint.

Ask the students to look around the room to find the matching phrase and hand it to you.

Their team mates can help them by shouting advice or ideas.

Change. A new students from the groups stands up. Repeat the activity.

Follow up by asking the students to make their own compliments.

You may need to discuss what makes a good compliment. These compliments could then be turned into cards or a classroom poster.

Please read this post for more information about the template.

Having made other seasonal PowerPoint games, I was asked if I would make something for Easter.

So, I created this quiz with a menu screen that had an Easter egg hunt theme.

Underneath each of the Easter Eggs there is some hidden text, which may be a word, a phrase, a question or a challenge. This is quite a flexible template and you can use it in a number of different ways.

Download the template below:

Easter Egg hunt template

Activity Suggestion: Classroom Scavenger Hunt

Before the Game

Underneath the Easter Eggs write down clues or instructions to find an object in the classroom.

Place a buzzer or bell at the front of the class.

Playing the Game

Divide the class into groups.

For a class of 24 students, divide them into 6 groups. Each group consists of four students: Student A, Student B, Student C, Student D.

Select Easter Egg number 1. Ask the Student A’s to follow the instruction or find something that matches the description.

Find something made of plastic.

The first student to run to the front and ring the buzzer or bell can present their object.

This is a/n _____ and it’s ______. e.g. This is a ruler and it’s made of plastic.

Award a point to the team who answered first. The winning team chooses the next Easter Egg and Student B gets ready to follow the instruction or find something that matches the description.

Repeat and keep rotating the runners.

You can find a description of Classroom Scavenger Hunts here and here.

You can see example questions of a Classroom Scavenger Hunt here and here.

Please read this post for more information and a tutorial video about the template.

Every time Halloween comes around, I always hope that I will have the chance to turn ‘trick or treating’ into a classroom activity.

Trick or Treat uses an element of random chance in much the same way as BAAM and Typhoon do. The idea being that the game doesn’t just rely on how much a student knows or how much they participate and it gives all the students in the class a chance.

This is achieved by incorporating chances for students to lose their points at random. This also seems to work nicely with the idea of ‘trick or treat?’ because students can gain points as well as lose them.

The game contains 4 icons. The pumpkin which hides a ghost or piece of candy. A single ghost, which revealed will mean the students lose half their points. Three ghosts, which revealed will mean that the students lose all their points (This only applied to the student or group that discovered the ghosts). Finally there is a treat icon to indicate that it is a safe question and points or treats can be allocated at the teacher’s discretion.

There are three available templates.

Trick or Treat: Basic Menu Board

Trick or Treat: Menu Board with Questions

Trick or Treat: Menu Board with different Question Types

Before your class, download and open one of the available template.

How to Play

Divide the class into groups/teams and ask them to think of a team name. Teams of 4 to 5 students seem to work well.

Introduce the students to the different icons and what they mean. ‘Treats’ mean the students may earn points for their team. A single ghost means that they lose half their points. Three ghosts mean that they lose all their points.

Select a team at random to choose the first number. If their first choice is a ghost, don’t worry, they are very lucky! They lose no points because everyone is on 0 and they can choose again. This time is a little safer because one of the ghosts have been revealed.

If they choose a question, any team can answer. The first team to offer to correct answer earns points for their team.

The team who answered the last question chooses the next question number, but any team can answer the question.

Repeat until all questions have been answered or all pumpkins have been chosen.

The students may win a reward (at the teacher’s discretion) if there are balloons remaining at the end of the game.

Please read this post for more information and tutorial videos about these templates.

Above: The menu screen from the Christmas Quiz 2015

So far, I have produced a Christmas quiz each year. The menu screen is inspired by Christmas in some way. It may be a Christmas tree or it may be presents that are unwrapped.

The Christmas Quiz contains a menu screen and a question card for each icon on the menu screen.

However, there have been three versions of the Christmas quiz

The Christmas Quiz (2014)

The Christmas Quiz (2015)

The Christmas Quiz (2016)

Before your class, download and open one of the available template.

Using the template

The Christmas quiz is a basic template, so you will need to add your own questions.

The question slide design is supposed to represent an unwrapped present with a question inside.

There are several different types of questions you can use:

Vocabulary questions
Grammar questions
Text book specific questions
English Challenges
Role-play situations
1 minute presentations
Christmas questions

If you are doing a holiday themed lesson and want to use Christmas related questions, try this website. They have a large collection of Christmas questions that you can use. There are also additional resources here.

One you have typed in your questions, start the presentation from slide 1.