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Sort and Speak: A game show style makes any activity interesting and fun
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You just need a wordwall and you're ready to play your game.
Can you find all thirteen Chinese inventions?
Sort and Speak didn’t start off as a game. It started off as an activity to introduce students to Chinese inventions. We wanted to introduce as many Chinese inventions to the students as we could.
My group had chosen the topic of Chinese inventions. At first it seemed daunting. Where do you find information on Chinese inventions? There aren’t that many sources. Luckily the San Francisco public library had quite a few books, including a few in Chinese, and a VCD. Then we had to narrow down the long list.
Many were cut because they would be hard to identify. We decided on the four great Chinese inventions, plus the inventions different group members had chosen to do lessons on, and a few common items. So, how do you make a lesson on Chinese inventions interesting? How about having students guess which ones are Chinese inventions.
Post your question and sentence structure for everyone to see.
Before choosing this topic, I had no idea that tea was a Chinese invention. I added three common objects that were not Chinese inventions to the list. Since they were common, they wouldn’t necessarily be considered new vocabulary words, which allowed me to include sixteen inventions.
The original game was short and simple. Each group would sort all the inventions into two piles. We would discuss the results and see which group guessed correctly the most inventions.
After seeing the other teachers present their lessons, we realized we needed to teach a sentence structure. We incorporated our sentence structure into the game. What did China invent? China invented _________.
A hidden surprise makes the game even more exciting.
We added the country’s flag on the back of each picture. And I became the next Vanna White. We had four groups of students sort the pictures. Then each group had a chance to complete the sentence: China invented__________. They filled in the blank with an invention they believed China invented.
I walked to the word wall and removed the invention. “Is it a Chinese invention?” I would ask. Finally I would flip it over and reveal the answer. As each invention was used in the sentence, I removed it from the wall. The students were engaged and had fun. They practiced a sentence structure and learned about sixteen inventions. I will definitely use the game show style in my own classroom next year.
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