Customize these games to best suit your own unique group of students and the material that you are teaching them.
Students learn best when they are interested in and engaged by what is going on in the classroom ---particularly if their competitive sprits are aroused. To this end, incorporate fun games into your curriculum to reinforce concepts. Sixth grade science tends to include an introduction to life science, space and earth science, the atmosphere, and physical science. Here, we will provide suggestions on time-tested educational games that will help you to maximize your students' enjoyment of the material.
Instructions
1. Create card games to review key concepts in life science class. For instance, a major concept in life science is the food chain, which, in every ecosystem, includes primary producers, primary consumers, and secondary, tertiary, and quaternary consumers. Make playing cards, using index cards, for every ecosystem and have pairs of students play "food chain war." Print a picture of a life form on every playing card, and have students identify which one is higher up on the food chain. The one with the higher-ranking card takes both cards, and as in war, the student who ultimately gets all the cards wins.
2. Play a game similar to "Jeopardy" to reinforce physical science concepts. Create a game board with colorful posterboard and index cards. In sixth grade, students often learn about energy concepts, such as kinetic energy, potential energy, and work. Quiz their comprehension of these concepts by making up questions for which students must define the terms, explain how they relate (functionally and mathematically) to each other, and how these concepts manifest themselves in real life.
3. Demonstrate concepts in a hands-on way whenever possible. Allowing students to create a physical manifestation of what they are reading about in their textbooks is a powerful way to cement material in their memory. For instance, in earth science class, put students in pairs and give each student a piece of clay to represent tectonic plates. Tell students to slowly move the pieces of clay toward each other until they touch. Then let students collide the clay pieces. Ask them what the collision of tectonic plates represents, based on their understanding of how mountains are created.
4. Create a raffle that requires students to demonstrate their knowledge of classroom concepts. For instance, have the entire class participate in the same conceptual experiment. You could teach students how cracks in rocks are formed by filling a glass jar with water, sealing it, and freezing it overnight. Have students write an identification number on one side of a piece of paper, and write on the other side their prediction of what will happen in the experiment and why it will happen. Draw numbers until you get a correct answer. Reward the winning student with bonus points on the next test.
Tags: food chain, life science, each other, earth science, every ecosystem, index cards, physical science
