As I wrote the teacher guide for El espíritu de Xólotl, I went on a hunt for new games that teachers were using in other disciplines that I could bring to my repertoire and to the language classroom. Here are the three we’ve loved the most so far!!

¡SUERTE! (LUCK!)

This game is VERY similar to AnneMarie Chase’s EPIC game The Lucky Reading Game. In this variation of the classic, students have to decide whether to take a set number of points or try their luck.

After reading a chapter/studying a topic, you’ll love playing this game. All you need is a set of 10-15 comprehension questions!

Break your students into teams of 4-5. Each team will need a white board, marker, and eraser.

Ask question 1 from your list and allow teams time to consult and record their answer. Have them reveal answers and every team that is correct earns 5 points… BUT they have the option to test their luck by drawing a card from my deck.

The deck that I use for this game has only the cards from 2-10… so they’re VERY likely to get a higher number than 5, but if they don’t… they have to settle for the lower number. Team with the most points at the end wins!

The perk of games like this is that teams who miss a question are not automatically out of the running… which helps them stay focused and on task longer.

We played about 5 questions before the bell rang. I will definitely revisit this one!

ENGAÑO

Another fun card game we played was Engaño (Deception). While these card games are all very similar, the differences help keep students engaged through novelty! As Carol Gaab always says “Brains crave novelty”!

To play engaño, the set up is the same as Suerte. The difference comes in the scoring. This time I left ALL the cards in the deck. The card values were: Numbers – the number; Ace, King, Queen, Jack – 10; and Jokers – 0.

After a correct answer, each team drew a card. In round one, the team in the first row drew first, in round two, the team in the second row, etc.

After each team had drawn a card and quietly looked at it, they had to “announce” the card they had drawn. But they do not have to be honest!! They can discuss their plans with their group but have to do it quietly so the other teams don’t hear them!!

Ex. Team 1 drew a 5. They have to decide whether they say “We have a 5” or whether they want to decieve (engañar) the other groups by giving a higher or lower number.

When all teams have announced their “numbers,” I make a second circle around asking if they want to keep the card they have or trade for another team’s card. Ex. In round 1, team one is first to announce and first to keep or trade. If they trade their card for team 4’s card, that will be their point value for the round. Team 4 will then have team 1’s old card and team 1 will have team 4’s. I will move around the circle letting them all keep or trade. When I get to team 4, they can take their own card back BUT not from team 1… if another team has stolen it from team 1, it is fair game for team 4… but if team 1 still has it, they can’t “take back”.

We were able to play about 4 questions before we ran out of time. The winning team has the highest score based on the cards they ended up with at the end of the round.

VETE DE PESCA (Go fish) Teacher vs Student

This was SO MUCH FUN. I made a deck of cards with 4 each of the Go Fish vocabulary cards for my unit (you could play with a regular deck of cards if you just want a teacher v student game). I printed the cards, cut them out, and laminated them so they’d last forever.

Students were grouped by row into 4s and 5s. I gave each group of 4-5 five of the vocabulary cards. I dealt myself 7 cards. The rest of the cards went on a chair in the center of the room as a draw pile.

We all looked at our cards to see if we had any pairs we could lay down. On day 1, I had a pair and two groups of students had a pair.

Team 1 chose one of their cards and asked me if I had it. If I did, I had to give it to them to make a pair. If not, they had to go fish. We continued to all 5 teams and then it was my turn to ask. I could ask any of their teams, but they could only ask me.

It took only 2 rounds for me to run out of cards so I won day 1.

Day 2, they could have won in the first round… Team 2 had TWO PAIRS and so they only had one card left in hand… but team 1 saw their card and had the same one and asked me if I had it. They got the pair… but also lost the class the game. They got mucho razzing from other teams for not remembering they were supposed to all work together to beat me.

On Day 3, I let them ask me OR ask each other for matches. That was the only day I did not win… but they demanded to play every day until they beat me! That is how you know a game is a hit AND they got a bunch of exposure to our new words in the process!

Hope you try out 1 or all of these fun follow ups! The winter is long and cold and sometimes fun makes it move faster!