Category Archives: pbl

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Game Makers- Part 3: Creating & Making the Games

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If missed the previous posts in this series, click here: Post 1 & Post 2

Now that we have learned about graphic design and also how a professional game company designs games, it was our turn to create games to help the kindergarten classroom. The kindergarten teacher gave us a wish list of skills for the games. Students were paired up according to their interest in a particular skill.  Students first planned a game independently and then met with the partner to compare ideas to make one game design for the team.

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Each pair met with me to discuss the game design and to plan for the dimensions of the cards or game boards. Once the dimensions were set, I met with pairs to teach them how to measure cards. Some students wanted square cards while others wanted rectangles and all wanted different sizes. The hardest part was to teach them how to measure- example:  3 by 2 cards on a piece of cardstock. Once the paper was cut, the students worked on coloring the cards and searching for pictures online if needed. The same process was followed to make the game boards.  All games had to fit in a gallon size plastic bag to make it easy for the kindergarten teacher to store them.

Students made many mistakes with measuring but they did not give up. Students had lots of time to practice measuring accurately which is one of our math standards.

After making the cards and boards (depending on the design), the teams worked on writing clear directions to play their games.  Directions are VERY hard to write. There were many revisions for clarity, grammar and spelling.  After the final draft was completed, it was time to take the game to the laminator. The students loved cutting out their games and seeing the final product. Then we invited the kindergarten class to our room to play the games! The games were a success!

 

Here’s a closer look at the individual games, the game directions and the games in action.

pbl

Game Makers PBL- part 1

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GAME MAKERS

I am still fairly new to project-based learning but have loved the ones I have done with my classes the past 2 years. I had this idea for one a few years ago when a kindergarten teacher friend of mine was talking about making games or activities for her students. I thought it would be great if my 2nd graders could create learning games for her class.  However, our schedules did not work out until this year. I was so excited for my 2nd graders to become game designers!

Driving Question: 

 

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Another teacher in our district joined me in planning this pbl. Although this pbl would touch on multiple skills, we chose the following as our focus.

Learning Outcomes/Targets:

  • Write an informative text that clearly gives directions on how to play a game
  • Accurately partition rectangles, squares, and circles into equal parts
  • Choose the correct measurement tool and  accurately measure to create a certain size object
  • Collaborate with others to complete a task

How we kicked off the pbl:

The kindergarten teacher came into our classroom and asked for our help. She said she needed games to help her students and wondered if we could help. Of course, my class was up for that challenge. She brought a list of kindergarten skills and the students asked her a few questions about the skills. The students were excited but we had to learn about game design.

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Time to Explore!

I brought several games and placed them on each table. Each group sat down and looked at the parts of each game.  Then we created a list of what we knew about games.

 

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Part 2: Next post-

Now it was time to consult experts and create a list of what we needed to know. Click here to read part 2!

You can follow our journey here or on our class twitter page  @missmacsowls.