Battle Game #1: Envelopes

What is a Battle Game? Well, in short, it is me taking a worksheet and applying that practice to a game that we play in class allowing students to reap rewards towards Quest for the Shards of Light while practicing our current skills. For our first game, we played variation of a game I had seen several places before. In this game, the students complete a problem on the board. I watch as they work quietly until everyone at their table is in agreement, then they raise their hands. I mark down their order before I check answers, this way I don't miss who was next. Then I check their work to be sure each member of the group has worked it out to the correct answer. Beforehand, I tell them that if their clan is incorrect they will drop to the back of the pack, while they fix the problem.

Once the answers have been verified, we move over to a table containing 5 to 7 envelopes. I explain that in the envelopes there is one 50 point card. The cards to its right or left decrease by the same amount, so let's say they are 40, then 30's, then 20's and so on as needed (see the picture below). The clan that finished first picks first. They open the envelope and we record their score. From here there are two ways to play. One, they can leave their score card to share what they have then you can allow other groups to attempt to use those clues to solve the puzzle. The other way you can play is to let students leave a sticky note with either a truth or fib written on it. They can choose to help the next team, or not.

After five to eight rounds the totals are tallied for the last time and students reap their rewards. For this game, I gave the top three a training badge and some extra Class XP. The winning team also received our first special item; The Goblet of Champions. This closing reward is something that I am going to be playing around with as we go.

The experience was really fun across all of my classes. There were memorable comments, great teamwork, and a lot of agonizing over which envelope to pick. The last aspect that my students won't find out about until Monday is that I will be posting classroom world records for each of our battle games. That way, when I need to recycle a game to use there is an added incentive to be excited about.