Recently, my freshmen finished their Romeo and Juliet unit, so I was looking for a a new review game to play the day before the test.
We had recently played Trashketball, so I knew that wasn’t going to be the review game of choice.
I thought about Jeopardy or an escape room, but I didn’t have that much time.
Instead, I was looking for a high-interest, low-cost, low-effort review game. First, I did a quick Google to see what I could learn from other teachers. Over and over again, I saw suggestions for Stinky Feet and Attack the Castle. In the end, neither of those worked for me, but they both inspired my #1 New Favorite Review Game.
The game is called In the Black, and it will change your review game…game.
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Stinky Feet
If you’ve never played before, Stinky Feet is a review game beloved by elementary and middle school children.
- First, teams of students take turns answering a question.
- If they are correct, they get to take a sticky note or some similar label off a pair of “stinky feet” (usually drawn on the front board).
- The notes have positive and negative values that students tally to determine the winner.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t do feet, so that wasn’t going to be the review game for me.
Attack the Castle
Attack the Caste has a few variations, but the one I’ve used goes something like this:
- Students are divided into teams, and each team has a “castle” on the front board. Depending on how much time you have, teams can “design” their own castles. What the castles look like really makes no impact on the game.
- Each castle has a set number of sticky notes. When a team answers a question correctly, they “gift” one of their sticky notes to another team. The team with the fewest number of sticky notes at the end wins. There are different variations of this: no one starts with sticky notes, some sticky notes are good (bonus points, for example) and some are bad (loss of turn, for example).
Every time I have played Attack the Castle, it has gotten wayyyy too personal. It was a popularity contest as much as a review game, so it’s a “retired” game for me.
The Newest Review Game: In the Black
While Stinky Feet and Attack the Castle aren’t for me, if they are for you, that’s awesome.
However, if you, like me, are looking for an alternative, here’s what I ended up doing. I called this came In the Black, but I’m sure there are other names you could use.
- First, divide students into teams or let them choose teams. I found that this game works best with 4 or more teams of 3.
- Each team establishes group roles: a speaker, a drawer, and a mathematician. This gives everyone in the group a job, so no one is left out or left to coast along.
- As with any other review game, the teacher asks a team a question. The team collaborates, and the speaker shares their answer. If the team is correct, the “drawer” comes forward to draw a card from a standard deck of playing cards. I found it easiest if I shuffled the cards and spread them out somewhere I could easily see them.
- If the “drawer” pulls a red card, it’s negative points. If they pull a black card, then the team is “in the black” and earns positive points. The mathematician is then responsible for keeping score on the board.
As you can tell, that part of the game is partially inspired by Stinky Feet. But I wanted to add an element of Attack the Castle, an element of Uno, and a chance for redemption. First, I considered some of the great wild cards in Uno, but in a review game I don’t really want to skip a team or end up in a reverse war. Instead, I developed two wild cards of my own: Attack and Redeem.
- Each team gets an Attack and a Redeem card at the start of the game. I wrote my wild cards on sticky notes, so this does not have to be elaborate.
- Teams can only play one wild card per round, and any unplayed cards are worth +2 points at the end of the game.
- An attack card allows a team to “gift” their points to another team. This is clearly inspired by Attack the Castle, but with fewer “attacks,” the game is far less personal. This also led to some truly engaged game play.
- A redeem card allows a team to answer a second card in the round. If they are correct, they get to draw, but they will only get positive points. This encourages students to keep trying even when they struggle.
I loved playing In the Black with my students! While we were playing, I had one of those out-of-body-experiences. Students were so engaged I thought: “This must be what Bob Barker felt like!” It was a true Plinko moment (IYKYK).
General Review Game Advice
Regardless of what review game you decide to play with your students, these are some tried-and-true pieces of advice.
- While you take attendance or take care of any business tasks at the start of class, challenge groups to come up with school-appropriate team names. This builds a little classroom community. You can even reward the team with the best name by giving them an in-game bonus (an extra turn, perhaps). To level the playing field, you can even tell students their team names have to fit in a certain category (must include school colors, must rhyme, must be about the season, etc.)
- Establish clear game rules and read them out loud. Make sure to include a rule about bully, cheating, and poor sportsmanship. Be explicit about the consequences of being poor sports.
- Put the students in charge of points! At the end of the day, a review game is about test prep. I don’t really care about who wins, but the students do. Have students track the points in a visible spot. They will hold each other accountable for any math errors.
- If possible, post the game in Google Classroom afterward so students can continue studying.
- When students get too rowdy, play a “whisper round” where students can only talk in whispers.
- In the words of Drew Carey, “the points don’t matter,” so feel free to give away partial points for partially correct answers or for particularly good shows of sportsmanship.
If you play In the Black with your students, let me know! I’d love to hear how it goes for you!
