Gist: Students play a giant game of Monopoly to collect “properties” to win the game.

 

Why Do It? This game gets everyone up and moving, working problems in a fun, incentivized way. And the sheer size of this Worksheet Buster definitely piques students’ interest!  One of the challenges of Candy Land is that not all students are actively completing problems--some are waiting for their turn. Worksheetopoly solves that problem by being so HUGE that all students can fully participate the whole time.

 

Materials:

-huge sheet of plastic drop cloth, 4 MIL or thicker, at least 20ftx20ft

-Duct tape or colored masking tape

-marker

-square cardboard box

-dry erase markers, one for each student

-yellow and orange poster board

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Directions to Make:

1. Cut the plastic to the desired size, at least 20 ft x 20 ft.  *I realize this is huge. Either push desks ALL the way out of the way or arrange to play in the gym, common space, etc.  Going much smaller puts students awfully close together.

2.  Use tape to mark the boxes along the edges, 2 ft x 2 ft.  You'll have 10 boxes along each edge (not counting the corners twice, that's 36 boxes total).

3.  Tape all flaps of the box down and use marker to make the dots of a die.

 

Set Up:

1. Label the spaces as desired.  Either write questions directly on the spaces using dry or wet erase markers or number the spaces to represent the assignment.  Label remaining spaces as desired, such as jail, go, candy, go back 2 spaces, community chest (optional), chance (optional), etc.

2.  If using community chest and chance, use the posters to make giant cards.  You could write things like, FREE CANDY, swap places with any player, claim one space free, etc.

3. Each problem will need an answer so players can quickly check, so copy and cut apart the answer key, write answers out, etc.  Place the answer face-down or in an envelope at the matching space.

 

To Play:

1. If playing with a numbered game board, distribute a copy of the worksheet to each student.  If questions are written directly on the game board, students number a piece of paper and take that with them around the board.  Clip boards are helpful.

2.  All students start at a square with a problem.  They work that problem and answer on their worksheet/paper.  After time for everyone to work, everyone checks the problem of the player to their left.  Make sure to reset the answer to not give it away to the next player.

3.  If a player is correct, he or she writes their name using dry erase marker on the game board space to "claim" that space.

4.  A player rolls the die, and everyone moves that number of spaces to the left (or you can let the roller choose the direction).

5. Continue answering and checking.  See variations for ways to "claim" the spaces.

6. At the end of your designated playing time, the player with the most spaces is the winner.

 

Caution and Tips:

-This board is BIG.  If it were smaller, players would be in each other's body space even more than they are at this size.  Space out real-estate spaces with special spaces to give players more room.

-To have more space, consider other spaces in your school.  Is the gym available? A large-group instruction room? Lobby space?  Taking the learning to new locations is a powerful novelty to leverage too!  Awesome teacher Erin Scholes developed a close relationship with her school security officers by playing Worksheet Busters in her building’s lobby space.  The security officers were intrigued and eventually even joined in the fun with her classes. Now they stop by regularly to see what her class is up to.

-Play should move pretty quickly with little down time, but if a student cannot adhere to your expectations, they could complete the worksheet on their own in a traditional way.

 

Variations:

-The simplest version of this game is to number 30 of the spaces and make the rest bonus/penalty spaces like candy, move ahead 3 spaces, etc.  This would not require chance or community chest cards, writing questions on the spaces, etc. Students would rotate with their worksheet. Students would still need access to some kind of answer or answer key to check each problem.

-On the other end of the spectrum, you can make the problem spaces into real estate, use jail (though not skipping a turn, since that would mean not participating in learning--would kids WANT to go to jail?! Try having them give up one of their claimed spaces instead), etc to make this as Monopoly-like as possible.

-Claiming spaces: you can play that only one student can "claim" a space at a time, so when another student correctly answers that space, they replace (erase) the previous occupant.  Or you can allow as many students to claim a space as possible.

 

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