Mini White Board Games

If you don’t already have these for your classroom, get some!!! They’re cheap, easy to make, and the kids love them!  At your local home improvement store you’ll find 4′ x 8′ sheets of whiteboard for under $15. If you smile pretty and tell them that you’re a teacher, they will almost always cut the sheet into individualized Mini white boards for free! You can usually get 20 Mini boards (1′ x 1.5′) out of one large sheet.

Next you’ll need dry erase markers. These are a little bit more expensive, but you can order a 12 pack of them from Officemax.com or School Specialty Store for about $14.

Lastly, you’ll want some T-shirt erasers.  Find some old T-shirts that you no longer want. Cut them into rags and voila! You have some white board erasers!  You’ll want them to use these to erase, as the oils from their fingers could affect the longevity of the whiteboards. The oils tend to trap in the ink and make it tougher to erase the boards over time.

Student Response Games with Whiteboards 

Divide the classroom into teams (no larger than 10-12 per team). Select students to pass out one whiteboard, marker, and rag, to every pair of students. Students race to be the first to write the correct answer on their boards. The first team where EVERYONE in the group has the correct answer, wins a point!

Variations to the game:

• Students  write the TRANSLATION of what you say
• Students write the ANSWER to a question that you ask them in the target language
• Students DRAW a vocabulary word that you say in the target language
• Students CONJUGATE a verb into the requested form

Pictionary

Divide the classroom into teams of 6-10.  Call on 2 people from each team to come up to the front to get a word /sentence to draw from you. After seeing what word they’re to draw, one person holds the board while the other person begins to draw. Their teammates, who are seated, try to guess what word/sentence is being drawn.

Apurate (Hurry up!)

Divide the classroom into teams of 6-10.  Call out a word in English. One person from each team runs up to the board and writes the word vertically (from top to bottom). They then race back and their teams take turns running up to the board. The object is to be the first team to write words horizontally on the board, using the initial letters from vertically written word. The letter from the vertical word does NOT have to be the first letter of the horizontal words. The first team to use all of  their letters gets a point, but the game doesn’t end there. Since the object of the game is vocabulary comprehension, students from the winning team will randomly be asked what each of the horizontally written words means. For each correct answer they get another point. For each incorrect answer, other teams can “steal” a point by saying the correct translation.

 Adivinalo (Guess it)

Divide the classroom into 2 teams. One person from each team comes up and sits down facing their team,  with their back to the front of the classroom. A vocabulary word is written on the board. The seated students have to describe the vocabulary word, in the target language, to the person in the front until they are able to guess what it is.

        Variations to the game

• A picture of a scene is shown at the front of the room and  student tries to draw  (on a mini white board) what’s described to them
• A picture  of a vocabulary word is shown and students try to guess the word described to them in Spanish.
• A vocabulary word is written on the board and students try to guess the word being described to them in Spanish.
• A sentence is written and students have to guess the sentence.

Charades

Students are divided into 4 teams. A person from each team comes up to see what word/phrase they need to act out. On the count of 3 they start to act out the word/phrase, until someone from their team guesses it.

        Variations to the game

• You can make it a Charade Relay Race- Each team  makes a line. A stack of 12 vocabulary flashcards is placed in front of each line. The first person from each team picks up a card and acts it out for their team. As soon as somebody guesses it, they take the card with them and run to the back of the line. The second person in the line comes up to act out the next card. The first team to make it through their stack wins!

Letra por Letra/ Palabra por Palabra (letter by letter/word by word)

For Letra por Letra, students are given a word in English. They must be the first team to correctly write out the word, in Spanish, on the board. Each person may only write one NEW letter at a time. They can make as many CORRECTIONS to old letters as they wish, however.  Palabra por Palabra is played the same way, but instead of writing out a word (letter by letter), students try to translate a sentence (word by word). Same rules apply.

Matamoscas (Flyswatter)

Classroom is divided into 2 teams. One person from each team comes up and is given a flyswatter (you can find them at a Dollar Store). A picture of some scene is placed on the board. Students call out objects from the picture in English, and the Flyswatters race to hit the correct object with their flyswatter and say the word in Spanish. The first person who not only hits, but says the word in Spanish, wins a point for their team. After 3-5 rounds, the Flyswatters pick someone else to take their place.

 Variations to the game

• You can practice verb tenses by showing different verbs, in random order, on the screen. A seated classmate calls out the verb in English (for example: “Did you eat”) and the first Flyswatter to hit and say “ comiste”  wins the point.
• You can practice capitals and countries. Place an unlabeled map on the overhead. Have students call out the capital of some country. Flyswatters must race to hit and say the country  that matches the given capital.