I love to play games in the classroom to reinforce learning and review material.  I play games in the classroom A LOT, so I need to have a list of games ready to keep things interesting, engaging, and fresh!

One great game is Zap!  The way I’ve always played it is to write the letters of the alphabet on the board and on a piece of paper.  On the piece of paper I write hidden point values next to each letter.  When a student answers a review question correctly, he or she picks a letter and is awarded those corresponding points.  Their points continue to add up unless they happen to pick a letter that you’ve designated as a Zap letter.  If they pick a Zap, then they lose all their points.  {Wa, wa, wa.} :(

It’s a great game, but it requires a lot of prep.  Writing the letters twice and then assigning the points and zaps takes too long with your little cherubs waiting impatiently to start. And all that prep MUST be redone every time, or the smart cookies will figure out which letters are the good and bad ones.  :)

I decided to create a version with cards to eliminate that always-last-minute prep.

No letters or writing is involved… just cards with “ZAP Review Game ” on one side and a point value on the other side. You can spread them out on a table or floor, sticky tac them to the board, or use a pocket chart.  You could also just stack them and have students pick the top card to save time and make it simpler.

Students that answer a question correctly get to pick a card and receive the points on that card.  Students then keep their cards until the end of the game or they get a ZAP.  When all the cards are gone, students tally their points and the high score wins.

Sounds like a game you’d wanna play right?  :)

I’m sharing this as a download for you!  It will take a lot of your color ink, but if you want to conserve, you can just print in black and white on colored paper.

To get the two sided look, print pages 2-6.  Then feed the backside of pages 2-6 back into your printer {Make sure they are facing the right way.  On my printer, they should be face up.} and print pages 7-11.  On my printer, it’s set to print the last page first, so make sure you tell the printer to print the first page first or some of the cards won’t match up correctly.

For best results, you should print on card stock, since you can sort of see through regular paper, and if they can manage it, those smart cookies probably will be trying to figure out where those Zaps are.  :)

Hope you and your students will enjoy it!

What are some of your favorite Review Games?  I’m always interested in learning some good ones!

Just a few days until I report for duty!  Thankfully, my sweet Davis is feeling somewhat better.  I hate seeing him feeling so badly, and I want to start to panic about ALL I have left to do!  :)